Salesmanship 


UC-NRLF 


B    3    151    fiSS 


■ 
: 

i 


t'.  A.  GLOVER. 


C.  A,  GLOVER. 


READ'S  LESSONS    ^=^^ 

IN 

SALESMANSHIP 


BY 

Harlan  E.   Read 

Principal  of  Brown' s  Business  College,  Peoria,  Illinois 


Published   by 

J.  A.   LYONS  &  COMPANY 

Chicago  New  York 


ws 


Copyrighted,  1910,  by 
J.  A.  Lyons  A  Company 

EDUCATION  DEPf. 


FOREWORD 

THIS  course  is  specially  prepared  for  students  of  the 
commercial  branches.  Its  object  is  to  train  young 
people  to  sell  goods  in  person  and  by  mail,  and  to 
that  end  it  develops  the  idea  throughout  that  salesmanship 
is  at  the  foundation  of  all  business  success,  because  any 
transaction  involving  an  agreement  between  two  persons 
calls  for  the  exercise  of  the  salesmanship  quality. 

Everybody  needs  to  know  how  to  *'talk  business"  and 
how  to  write  business-getting  letters. 

This  is  a  course  of  fifty  lessons  on  the  simple  principles 
of  salesmanship,  and  should  occupy  the  time  of  one  recita- 
tion period  a  day,  five  days  a  week,  for  ten  weeks. 

It  contains  no  startling  or  strange  statements  about  sales- 
manship, but  is  a  simple,  direct  statement  of  the  well-known 
fundamentals  of  the  science  of  selling,  arranged  for  the 
study  of  young  men  and  women. 

Each  day's  work  consists  of  a  short  lesson  to  be  studied 
by  the  student,  and  an  exercise  or  paragraph  to  be  written. 
Throughout  Parts  I  and  II  these  written  exercises  consist  of 
arguments  on  the  point  of  the  lesson  in  each  case.  Through- 
out Part  III  the  written  exercises  consist  of  letters,  the  letter 
for  each  lesson  to  embody  in  a  practical  way  the  instructions 
given  in  the  lesson. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  this  course  is  as  interesting 
and  valuable  for  girls  as  for  boys,  its  chief  value  being  in 
the  life  and  originality  it  will  give  to  the  writing  of  business 
letters. 


CONTENTS 


PART  1— ELEMENTS  OF  SALESMANSHIP 

Pages 
Lesson  1.     A  fair  bargain  benefits  both  parties 5-8 

Lesson  2.     Outlines  and  definitions.     Sales  classified 9-14 

Lessons  3-5.     The  customer 15-26 

Lessons  6-8.     The  thing  sold 28-41 

Lesson  9.     The  salesman' s  house 41-45 

Lesson  10.  Your  competitor's  house.     Other  considerations.  45-49 

Lessons  1 1-13.     The  salesman 50-67 

Lesson  14.     Selecting  prospects.     Planning  visits 68-73 

Lesson  15.     The  normal  selling  talk 73-76 

Lessons  16-24.     Answering  objections 76-80 

PART  II  —  MAKING  A  SALE 

Lesson  25.     Mind  control.     The  five  senses 81-89 

Lessons  26-30.     Presenting  the  argument.     Process  of  a  sale 89-1 16 

Audience.   Attention.    Interest.    Desire.    Action. 

Lessons  31-35.     Practical  applications 1 16-117 

Lesson  36.     Supplemental  requirements 118-124 

PART  III— SALESMANSHIP  BY  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Lesson  37.     Similarity  to  salesmanship  in  person 125-128 

Lessons  38-39.     Process  of  the  sale  by  letter 1 29-137 

Audience.   Attention.    Interest.    Desire.    Action. 

Lesson         40.     The  five  senses,  in  correspondence 137-139 

Lesson  41.     The  length  of  a  letter 139-144 

Lessons  42-45.     A  series  of  form  letters 144-150 

Lessons  46-50.     Test  exercises 150-151 

4 


PART  I 
Elements  of  Salesmanship 

LESSON  1 
A  Fair  Bargain  Benefits  Both  Parties 

It  is  essential  for  the  salesman  to  understand  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  commercial  transactions.  One  of  these 
principles  will  engage  our  attention  in  our  first  lesson.  This 
is  the  fixed  business  rule  that  every  fair  bargain  must  benefit 
both  parties. 

There  is  an  amazing  number  of  people  in  the  world  who 
imagine  that  the  law  of  business  is  that  one  must  make  a 
profit  by  getting  an  advantage  over  others.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  very  opposite  is  the  case.  It  is  an  established  truth  that 
those  firms  that  are  operating  most  successfully  are  the  ones 
that  are  benefiting  their  customers  most;  in  short,  the  ones 
that  recognize  the  fundamental  proposition  that  a  fair  bargain 
must  benefit  both  parties.     Let  us  see  why  this  is  the  case. 

Suppose  you  are  in  need  of  a  pen.  Your  business  cannot 
be  transacted  without  something  to  write  with,  and  you  decide 
to  manufacture  a  pen.  You  must  go  to  a  mine  and  dig  for 
iron.  You  must  build  a  furnace  in  which  to  heat  the  iron 
and  unite  it  with  carbon  to  make  steel.  You  must  then, 
through  a  hundred  processes,  reduce  your  steel  to  the  proper 
shape  and  size  to  use  as  a  pen,  and,  in  this  process,  use  much 
expensive  machinery.  Your  pen  would  cost  you  thousands  of 
dollars,  if  you  made  it  yourself. 

Yet  a  manufacturer  who  makes  millions  of  pens  at  a  time, 
buys  his  steel  in  large  quantities,  and  spends  a  fortune  on 


,6.',"."  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

I  ^    o    ''  o "         *    o  , 

expensive  machinery  and  skilled  workmen,  finds  that  his  pens 
cost  him  less  than  a  fifth  of  a  cent  apiece.  When  he  sells  you 
these  pens  at  five  or  ten  cents  a  dozen,  both  you  and  he  have 
been  benefited.     Examine  the  following  illustration: 

You  are  employed  on  a  farm  four  miles  from  town  and 
desire  to  sell  four  pounds  of  butter  to  a  customer  named 
Henderson,  who  lives  half  way  between  your  farm  and  town. 
You  could  get  30c  a  pound  for  your  butter  in  town  but 
would  prefer  to  sell  it  to  Mr.  Henderson  for  25c  a  pound,  or 
$1.00  for  the  four  pounds,  to  save  the  time  and  trouble  of  a 
trip  to  town.  The  following  paragraph,  which  contains  fewer 
than  seventy-five  words,  explains  why  this  would  benefit 
both  parties.  It  is  in  the  exact  words  of  the  speaker  after  he 
has  mentioned  the  price,  quality,  and  weight  of  the  goods. 

"Mr.  Henderson,  in  town  I  can  get  $1.20  for  this  butter 
but  I  can  save  time  and  trouble  by  selling  it  to  you  for  $1.00. 
I  believe  that  the  time  I  will  save  will  be  worth  more  than  20c 
to  me,  and  I  am  willing  to  give  you  the  benefit  of  the  20c.  So 
you  see,  it  will  benefit  us  both.  Do  you  want  the  butter  for 
$1.00?" 

It  is  true  of  every  honest  transaction  that  both  parties  must 
be  benefited  and  the  salesman  must  ever  remember  this.  As  a 
rule,  do  not  try  to  persuade  the  customer  that  you  are  losing 
money  by  trading  with  him.  The  famous  advertisement,  'Tf 
you  don't  buy  my  hats  we  both  lose  money,"  expresses  this 
same  idea  in  a  different  way. 

It  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  both  buyer  and  seller 
should  make  an  equal  amount  of  money.  On  the  contrary, 
the  customer  must  often  be  shown  that  his  profits  (or  ad- 
vantages) will  be  worth  many  times  the  entire  cost  of  the 
article,  before  he  will  buy  it  at  all. 

The  question  then  naturally  arises :  ''How  should  profit  be 
divided  between  the  two  parties  to  a  bargain  ?" 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  that  the  man  who  has  mer- 
chandise for  sale  must  put  a  price  on  his  goods  that  will  give 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  7 

him  enough  profit  to  pay  him  for  engaging  in  business  and 
at  the  same  time  give  his  customer  enough  profit  or  benefit 
to  induce  him  to  begin  or  cause  him  to  continue  as  a  customer. 
In  order  to  do  this  intelligently,  he  must  know  what  the  world's 
supply  of  his  product  is,  and  what  the  demand  for  it  is  in  his 
locality.  He  must  understand  how  to  create  that  demand, 
where  it  does  not  exist  already.  He  must  understand  how  to 
produce  high  grade  goods  at  low  cost,  and  be  able  to  explain 
these  advantages  to  his  customers. 

To  summarize  the  above,  the  division  of  profit  depends  on : 
(1)  The  law  of  supply  and  demand,  (2)  The  manufacturer's 
ability  to  produce  high  grade  goods  at  low  cost,  (3)  The 
salesman's  ability. 

By  understanding  these  things  the  man  who  fixes  a  price 
will  know  how  to  increase  the  amount  of  profit,  or  benefit,  his 
firm  may  wisely  or  safely  obtain  in  its  transactions. 

The  salesman  who  sells  goods  which  his  customer  expects 
to  sell  again  at  a  profit  must  be  honest  in  his  desire  for  his 
customer  to  make  money.  Nothing  else  will  win  in  the  long 
run.  A  firm's  profit  usually  depends  upon  the  continued  patron- 
age of  customers.  In  the  case  above  cited,  this  depends  upon 
the  customer's  ability  to  make  money  with  his  goods. 

If  your  customer  is  not  making  money  on  your  line,  and 
finds  it  out,  he  will  buy  from  you  no  longer.  If  he  does  not 
find  it  out,  and  you  are  selling  him  most  of  his  goods,  he  will 
fail.    In  either  case,  you  are  a  loser  as  well  as  he. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

You  are  a  salesman  for  a  shoe  manufacturer  in  your  city. 
You  have  a  shoe  which  you  sell  at  $24.00  a  dozen  to  any  point 
in  the  United  States,  express  or  freight  charges  prepaid. 
Since  there  will  be  no  such  charges  if  you  sell  the  goods  to  a 
dealer  in  your  own  town,  you  are  willing  to  sell  him  six  dozen 
of  these  shoes  at  $23.50  a  dozen.  Write  an  argument  of  fifty 
to  seventy-five  words,  explaining  to  him  why  this  sale  will 


8 


Lessons    in    Salesmanship 


benefit  both  parties.     Do  not  mention  any  other  points.     The 
dealer's  name  is  Jackson.    Use  it  in  speaking  to  him. 


CHART  ONE 


CO 
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W 

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CO 


Kinds  of 
Salesmanship 


fl.  In 
\2.  By 
13.     By 


Person 
By  Correspondence 
By  Advertising 

fWholesale  Salesmen 
Kinds  of  Salesmen  i  Retail  Salesmen 
LCanvassers 

fCustomer   (see  chart  2) 
-|  Commodity  (see  chart  4) 
[Salesman 


3.     Factors  of  Sale 


Sales  Classified 
AS  TO  Simplicity 


Class  1 
Class  2  -fEasy 


Very  easy 
Requires  Accuracy 


fMedium       fAccuracy 
Class  3  \  Requires    <  Industry 

L  tP^i'sonality 

r\         A  {^^^^  fAccuracy 

tArgument 


Class  5 


'Very  Hard 


.Requires 


Accuracy 

Industry 

Personality 

Argument 

Persuasion 


Read  the  above  chart  before  studying  Lesson  2,  and  refer 
to  it  as  your  study  progresses,  comparing  it  with  the  shorter 
outlines  which  are  presented  throughout  the  lesson,  and  en- 
deavoring to  fix  the  outlines  in  your  mind.  Refer  to  it  in 
review  after  completing  Lesson  2. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship 

LESSON  2 
Preliminary  Outlines  and  Definitions 


SALESMANSHIP 


Kinds  of  salesmanship. 

Kinds  of  salesmen. 

Factors  of  the  sale. 

Sales  classified  as  to  simplicity. 


Salesmanship,  as  generally  understood,  means  the  art  of 
selling  goods,  usually  at  a  profit.  In  this  book  it  is  given  a 
broader  meaning  and  refers  to  the  science  of  disposing  of 
goods,  services,  or  anything  else  of  value  upon  terms  desirable 
to  the  seller.     It  is  the  basis  of  business  transactions. 

The  elements  of  salesmanship  are  those  physical,  intel- 
lectual, and  inspirational  qualities  that  are  necessary  to  the 
accomplishment  of  a  sale. 

By  FACTORS  of  the  sale  we  refer  to  the  three  essential 
definite  objects  that  must  be  considered  in  every  sale, — the 
customer,  the  commodity,  and  the  salesman. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  salesmanship,  as  follows: 

{In  person. 
By  correspondence. 
By  advertising. 

Salesmanship  in  Person  refers  to  sales  in  which  the 
buyer  and  seller,  or  their  agents,  come  together  face  to  face 
for  the  transaction  of  their  business. 

Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  refers  to  sales  made 
through  the  medium  of  letters. 

Salesmanship  by  Advertising  is  not  treated  in  this  book, 
except  that  kind  of  advertising  which  is  accomplished  through 
business-getting  circular  letters. 

This  book  deals  with  salesmanship  in  person  and  by  corre- 
spondence, and  shows  their  intimate  relation  to  each  other. 
The  science  of  salesmanship  is  as  important  to  the  writer  of 


10  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

good  business  letters  as  to  the  travelling  salesman  with  his  grip 
in  his  hand.    Parts  I  and  II  of  this  text  refer  to  salesmanship 
in  person.    Part  III  to  salesmanship  by  correspondence. 
There  are  three  classes  of  salesmen : 

'The  wholesale  salesman. 
SALESMEN  J  The  retail  salesman. 
The  canvasser. 

The  wholesale  salesman  represents  either  a  manufacturing 
or  a  jobbing  house  and  sells  to  retail  dealers.  Most  of  these 
men  are  travelling  salesman,  though  a  few  of  them  sell  goods 
in  their  own  stock  rooms. 

The  retail  salesman  represents  a  different  branch  of  sales- 
manship, for  he  sells  goods  usually  in  single  items  and  almost 
entirely  to  customers  who  come  to  him  instead  of  requiring 
him  to  go  to  them. 

The  canvasser  usually  sells  single  items  like  the  retailer, 
but  goes  out  for  his  customers  as  the  Vv^holesale  salesman  does. 

These  three  kinds  of  salesmen  sell  by  different  methods, 
but  certain  fundamental  truths  hold  good  with  all  three. 

The  factors  of  a  sale  are: 

11.  The  customer. 
2.  The  commodity. 
3.  The  salesman. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  course  to  teach  you  first  how  to 
understand  each  of  these  factors  separately,  and  second,  how 
to  use  this  knowledge  to  accomplish  the  sale ;  and  also  to  show 
you  that  the  rules  that  govern  the  making  of  a  sale  are  just 
as  firmly  established  as  are  the  factory  rules  for  the  manu- 
facture of  the  goods  themselves. 

For  convenient  study,  the  sale  has  been  divided  into  five 
classes,  according  to  simplicity.  These  classes  are  discussed 
in  considerable  detail  in  the  four  pages  following.  Study 
these  pages  with  great  care,  *as  it  is  important  for  you  to 
understand  thoroughly  this  fundamental  classification. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  11 

Sales  Classified  as  to  Simplicity 

Class  1.  The  simplest  business  sale  is  one  in  which  the 
customer  is  so  anxious  to  buy  at  a  specified  price  that  he  comes 
to  the  salesman  and  voluntarily  offers  him  the  proper  amount 
of  money  for  the  goods.  As  an  illustration,  take  the  ticket 
seller  in  the  box  office  of  a  theatre.  A  line  of  customers  is 
waiting.  Each  customer  is  ready  to  pay  for  his  ticket  as  soon 
as  it  is  given  to  him.  You  will  at  once  see  that  there  is  only 
one  requirement  of  the  salesman  here.  This  is  the  require- 
ment of  accuracy  in  handling  a  transaction  the  details  of 
which  are  simple  and  usually  so  well  known  by  the  buyer  as 
to  require  no  selling  talk  whatever. 

Class  2.  The  customer  is  not  anxious  as  in  the  previous 
case,  but  is  perfectly  willing  to  buy  at  a  given  price  of  any 
salesman  who  may  happen  to  ask  for  his  business. 

Take  as  an  illustration  another  kind  of  ticket  seller.  Sup- 
pose a  concert  is  to  be  given  and  a  number  of  people  are 
engaged  in  canvassing  for  the  sale  of  tickets.  Mr.  Smith,  a 
prospective  customer,  is  perfectly  willing  to  buy  a  ticket  to 
the  concert  from  the  first  person  who  asks  him.  You  will  at 
once  perceive  that  the  salesman  must  have  industry  or  activity, 
in  addition  to  meeting  the  requirement  of  accuracy  as  in  the 
first  case.  This  industry  may  be  either  of  the  body  or  of  the 
mind.  For  instance,  suppose  a  young  man  selling  tickets  for 
a  concert  is  anxious  to  sell  more  than  his  competitors  but  per- 
haps is  not  conveniently  situated  so  that  he  can  personally 
visit  as  many  prospective  buyers  as  others  can.  He  goes  to  a 
telephone  and  calls  up  twenty  or  thirty  people,  securing  their 
pledges  to  buy  tickets  of  him.  Thus  by  directing  mental 
activity,  he  achieves  more  than  his  competitors  who  use  mere 
physical  activity  visiting  customers  in  person. 

You  will  observe  that  in  this  second  class,  the  requirements 
are  (1)  accuracy,  as  in  Class  1,  and  (2)  energy. 

Class  3.  *  Sales  of  Class  1  and  Class  2  are  so  simple  in 


12  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

their  requirements  that  they  need  no  special  attention  here. 
In  the  first  class,  the  customer  is  anxious  to  buy.  In  the  second 
class  he  is  willing  to  buy.  In  Class  3,  however,  we  have  an 
entirely  different  situation — the  customer  is  neither  willing  nor 
unwilling- to  buy,  the  matter  never  having  been  brought  to  his 
attention.  Often  such  customers  can  use  the  goods  offered 
and  will  buy  if  the  right  impression  is  made.  They  do  not 
have  to  be  convinced  of  the  value  of  the  goods  through  argu- 
ment, and  the  salesman  may  so  impress  such  customers  with 
his  personality  that  he  can  secure  the  order  easily. 

For  instance,  take  the  same  simple  illustration  of  the  con- 
cert tickets.  Two  people  with  these  tickets  for  sale  reach  the 
customer  at  exactly  the  same  time.  The  customer  has  not 
considered  the  matter  yet,  but  needs  no  argument  to  bring  him 
to  a  favorable  conclusion.  Neither  one  of  the  salesmen  has 
to  argue  about  the  value  of  the  tickets.  It  is  merely  a  question 
of  which  one  can  make  the  best  impression  upon  the  customer. 

A  forceful  personality  is  an  important  requirement  of  the 
successful  salesman.  While  it  is  desirable  for  one  to  have  a 
good  proposition,  a  well-known  house  and  skill  in  argument, 
there  are  many  cases  in  which  these  things  do  not  count  as 
much  as  personality  alone.  Personality  gives  strength  to  the 
salesman's  argument  and  inspires  in  the  customer  confidence 
in  the  house  for  which  the  salesman  works.  This  ought  not, 
however,  to  discourage  anyone  from  the  pursuit  of  selling 
goods,  for  there  is  nothing  vague  or  mystical  about  a  con- 
vincing personality ;  nothing  that  cannot  be  acquired  through 
effort  and  study.  One  purpose  of  this  course  is  to  show  you 
how  you  can  improve  your  personality  and  make  it  more 
effective  for  the  work  of  salesmanship. 

If  you  have  any  doubt  that  this  can  be  accomplished,  please 
consider  the  following  statements  before  yielding  to  your 
doubts. 

(1)  Personality  depends  upon  the  development  of  the 
physical,      intellectual     and      moral     man.      (2)     All     these 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  13 

can  be  improved.  (3)  The  word  physical  does  not  refer 
merely  to  the  height,  weight,  or  strength  of  a  man.  It  em- 
braces also  his  general  state  of  vigor  and  his  personal  appear- 
ance, both  of  which  can  be  improved  by  following  the  common 
laws  of  health  and  cleanliness.  (4)  By  "the  improvement  of 
the  intellectual  man,"  reference  is  made  especially  to  the  sales- 
man's mastery  of  the  details  of  his  own  business,  which  can 
be  secured  through  study.  (5)  The  moral  elements  of  per- 
sonality in  the  salesman  are  the  ones  that  inspire  confidence, 
and  these  can  be  acquired  by  clean  living  and  right  thinking. 

The  requirements  of  Class  3  are  (1)  Accuracy,  (2)  In- 
dustry, (3)  Strong  personality. 

Class  4.  But  while  his  personality  may  gain  for  the  sales- 
man an  audience  with  a  buyer  and  an  influence  over  him  that 
frequently  controls  the  sale,  there  are  certain  points  beyond 
which  mere  personality  cannot  go.  Here  the  salesman  must 
use,  in  addition  to  the  requirements  already  mentioned,  a 
skill  in  argument,  which  is  based  upon  his  knowledge  of  the 
goods  and  his  ability  to  convey  this  knowledge  of  the  goods 
to  the  mind  of  the  buyer. 

The  requirements  of  Class  4  are  (1)  Accuracy,  (2)  In- 
dustry, (3)  Strong  Personality,  (4)  Argument. 

Class  5.  This  is  the  hardest  class  of  sale.  The  customer 
is  absolutely  unwilling  to  buy.  After  all  the  powers  of  energy, 
personality,  and  argument  have  been  brought  into  play,  a  final 
faculty  is  required  of  the  salesman  to  enable  him  to  accom- 
plish one  of  these  most  difficult  sales.  This  is  the  art  of 
persuasion.  Suppose  you  have  argued  your  point  with  a 
customer  until  he  is  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  value  of  the 
goods,  but  for  some  unknown  reason  does  not  buy.  In  many 
cases,  you  must  exercise  your  power  of  persuasion.  Undoubt- 
edly, when  buying  a  hat  or  a  necktie,  you  have  had  that 
peculiar  mental  impression  that  you  were  convinced  of  the 
value  of  the  goods  but  had  not  yet  been  persuaded  to  buy  them. 
This  is  the  frame  of  mind  in  which  you  will  find  a  great  many 


14  Lessons   in   Salesmanship 

of  your  customers,  and  the  art  of  persuading  without  appear- 
ing to  gush  or  plead  is  one  of  the  things  you  must  learn. 

You  will  thus  see  that  sales  have  been  arbitrarily  divided 
into  five  classes  according  to  their  simplicity.  In  Class  1,  the 
customer  is  anxious  to  buy.  The  sale  is  very  easy.  The  only 
requirement  is  accuracy.  In  Class  2,  the  customer  is  willing 
to  buy,  but  not  anxious.  The  sale  is  easy,  but  not  as  easy  as 
before.  The  requirements  are  accuracy  and  industry.  In 
Class  3,  the  customer  is  indifferent.  The  sale  is  neither  easy 
nor  hard.  It  requires  accuracy,  industry  and  personality.  In 
Class  4,  the  customer  is  unconvinced.  The  sale  is  hard.  The 
requirements  are  accuracy,  industry,  personality  and  argument. 
In  Class  5,  the  customer  is  unwilling.  The  sale  is  very  hard. 
The  requirements  are  accuracy,  industry,  personality,  argument 
and  persuasion. 

Fix  in  your  mind  the  following  tabulations : 

Class  1.     Customer  Anxious. 
Class  2.     Customer  Willing. 
Class  3.     Customer  Indifferent. 
Class  4.     Customer  Unconvinced. 
Class  5.     Customer  Unwilling. 

Requirements : 

Class  1.     Accuracy. 

Class  2.     Accuracy,  Industry. 

Class  3.     Accuracy,  Industry,  Personality. 

Class  4.     Accuracy,  Industry,  Personality,  Argument. 

Class  5.     Accuracy,  Industry,  Personality,  Argument, 
Persuasion. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

1.  Read  again  the  paragraph  which  describes  sales  of 
Class  1,  and  the  illustration  which  follows  it.  Write  an  illus- 
tration of  your  own,  in  a  few  words,  of  a  sale  of  this  class. 

2.  Write  an  illustration  of  a  sale  of  Class  4. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  15 

CHART  TWO 


IDENTIFICATION 
AND  DESCRIPTION 

(Facts  to  be  learned 
about  the  customer) 


1 .  Name 

2.  Address 

3.  Extent  of  his  business  in  your 

LINE 

4.  Attitude  toward  article  you 

SELL 

5.  Attitude  toward  your  especial 

MAKE   (see  chart  3) 

^6.     His  personality  (see  page  22) 


Read  the  above  chart  before  studying  Lesson  3.  Refer  to 
it  as  your  study  of  the  lesson  progresses,  comparing  it  with 
the  matter  studied,  as  you  did  in  studying  Lesson  2. 


LESSON  3 
The  Customer 

One  of  the  first  things  a  salesman  must  do  is  to  find  out 
certain  facts  about  his  customer  which  are  sure  to  be  neces- 
sary or  valuable  to  him  in  his  work.  These  facts  will  vary  in 
different  cases.  There  are  certain  facts  that  it  is  usually 
necessary  to  know,  such  as  the  name  and  address,  when  they 
are  essential  to  the  transaction  or  desired  for  future  reference. 
There  are  certain  facts  of  personality  and  business  conditions 
in  respect  to  which  no  two  customers  will  be  exactly  alike,  and 
these  facts  (especially  such  of  them  as  show  a  difference  from 
the  normal  on  the  part  of  the  customer)  are  of  extraordinary 
importance  to  the  salesman.  In  short,  the  salesman  must 
understand  his  customer,  and  his  understanding  must  be  based 
on  facts.  • 

A  perusal  of  any  of  the  Sherlock  Holmes  stories  will  in- 
terest the  salesman  in  the  quality  of  observation  which  the 
salesman  must  cultivate.     Sherlock  Holmes  had  a  remarkable 


16  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

faculty  for  finding  out  what  sort  of  people  he  was  dealing  with, 
through  powers  of  close  observation.  The  author,  Conan 
Doyle,  takes  pains  to  explain  in  every  story  that  Sherlock 
Holmes  did  nothing  by  chance,  and  did  not  rely  upon  any 
invisible,  peculiar  or  mystic  power  to  aid  him  in  making  his 
deductfons.  He  had  simply  cultivated  a  remarkable  shrewd- 
ness of  observation.  This  is  a  quality  that  the  salesman  must 
cultivate.    It  will  enable  him  to  understand  his  customer. 

It  is  true  that  some  people  are  able  to  judge  the  character- 
istics of  others  at  a  glance  with  unusual  facility.  It  is  popu- 
larly supposed  that  the  ability  to  do  this  is  a  kind  of  strange 
and  unexplainable  power,  but  this  is  not  true.  There  is  un- 
doubtedly some  basis  for  the  belief  that  the  ability  to  under- 
stand and  judge  the  character  of  others  comes  naturally  to 
some  people ;  but  the  assumption  that  this  is  a  vague,  mys- 
terious power,  and  not  a  definite,  practical  faculty  capable  of 
cultivation,  is  entirely  wrong.  Those  who  have  this  power  by 
nature,  have  it  through  inheritance.  They  have  it  because  their 
parents  had  it,  and  their  parents  had  it  because  their  fore- 
fathers cultivated  it.  But  even  ah  inherited  quality  is  valueless 
unless  developed,  and  an  uninherited  quality  may  be  acquired. 
The  ability  to  judge  men  and  women,  like  every  other  ability 
in  the  world,  comes  as  the  result  of  study  and  effort,  either 
on  the  part  of  the  student  himself,  or  his  ancestors.  Careful 
study  will  increase  the  power  of  any  man  or  woman  to  judge 
others  correctly.  Do  not  allow  yourself  to  think  that  your 
judgment  of  a  man  must  be  an  ''off-hand  intuition."  It  should 
be  a  matter  of  careful,  definite  study. 

Classifying  Customers 

Suppose  you  are  a  salesman  for  the  Singer  Sewing  Machine 
Company.  Before  you  begin  work  with  any  customer  you 
desire  if  possible  to  find  out  to  what  class  he  belongs. 

1.  If  he  belongs  to  Class  1,  he  will  send  you  his  order 
without   solicitation,   requiring   of  you   only  accuracy   in  the 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  17 

statement  of  your  proposition  and  in  the  performance  of  your 
contract  to  deliver  the  goods  on  time  and  in  good  condition. 

2.  If  he  does  not  belong  to  Class  1,  you  may  call  upon 
him  and  hold  a  conversation  something  like  this : 

You:  "Good  morning,  Mr.  Jones;  I  am  Mr. ,  rep- 
resenting the  Singer  Sewing  Machine  Company." 

Jones :  "I  am  glad  to  see  you.  I  need  some  new  machines 
of  some  kind  right  away." 

You:  "I  came  just  at  the  right  time,  then,  because  if  you 
need  some  machines,  you  are  certain  to  need  the  Singer." 

Jones :  "I  don't  know  about  that.  Brown,  the  Wheeler  & 
Wilson  man,  was  in  yesterday  and  I  have  done  business  with 
him  for  so  many  years  that  I  hated  to  put  him  oif.  But  I 
thought  I'd  better  see  your  new  model  first." 

In  Jones'  reply  to  your  first  question  he  showed  that  he 
did  not  belong  to  Class  1  or  2,  for  if  he  had  he  would  not  have 
used  the  words  "of  some  kind."  He  also  showed  that  he  was 
probably  not  in  Class  5,  as  he  said  his  business  would  require 
him  to  buy  some  machine  at  once.  In  his  reply  to  the  next 
question,  he  showed  that  he  was  not  in  Class  3,  as  he  had 
refused  to  give  Brown  an  order  on  the  mere  strength  of 
Brown's  personality.    He  must  therefore  be  in  Class  4. 

•The  following  is  an  interesting  table  of  things  about  the 
customer  that  the  salesman  should  usually  find  out.  (1)  Name. 
(2)  Address.  (3)  Extent  of  his  business  in  your  line.  (4) 
Attitude  toward  the  article  you  sell.  (5)  Attitude  to  your 
special  make.     (6)  His  personality. 

The  special  points  that  the  salesman  should  find  out  about 
his  customer  vary  according  to  the  kind  of  commodity  he  sells. 
Take  as  an  example  of  a  specialty,  the  business  college  busi- 
ness. The  information  usually  desired  by  the  salesman  is: 
(1)  Name.  (2)  Address.  (3)  Parent's  name.  (4)  Age. 
(5)  Previous  schooling.  (6)  Life  plans  if  known.  (7)  Atti- 
tude toward  business  college  education.  (8)  Attitude  toward 
the  school  the  salesman  represents. 


18 


Lessons    in    Salesmanship 


Almost  every  business  requires  one  or  two  unusual  points 
of  information  about  its  customers  or  its  prospective  customers. 
For  instance,  the  name  of  a  person  is  Fay  Emerson.  If  Fay 
is  a  woman,  the  knowledge  of  the  name  and  address  is  of 
value  to  a  milliner  as  that  of  a  prospective  customer.  If  Fay 
is  a  man,  a  men's  clothier  will  be  interested  in  knowing  about 
him.  But  the  photographer  can  use  the  name  whether  Fay  is 
a  man  or  a  woman.  The  salesman  for  an  artificial  limb  con- 
cern is  interested  only  in  people  with  limbs  gone.  The  sales- 
man of  cigars  wants  the  names  of  smokers.  The  promoter 
wants  the  names  of  investors.  In  this  way  nearly  every  sales- 
man needs  to  know  special  things  about  his  customer  that  may 
not  interest  other  salesmen. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

As  a  typewriter  salesman,  name  five  things  you  would 
like  to  know  about  your  prospective  customer,  aside  from  his 
name  and  address. 


Q 

oo 

HO 
HO 

r 


If  a 
User 


CHART  THREE 


One  who  purchases' 
for  his  own  use 

One  who  purchases 
for  others 


>< 


If  a        fProprietor 
Dealers  ^  ^ 

[Agent  or    Buyer", 


Is  he   prej 
diced  against 


iu-f 

nstj 


You? 

Your  firm? 
Your  article? 


Is  he  open  to  argument  ? 

If  not,  why  ? 

Can   this    cause    be    re- 
moved ? 


Read  the  foregoing  chart  carefully  before  studying  Lesson 
4,  comparing  it  with  the  shorter  outlines  given  in  the  lesson 
as  your  study  proceeds. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  19 

LESSON  4 
The  Customer  —  Continued 

It  is  important  to  find  out  certain  facts  regarding  your 
customer's  tastes  and  character,  and,  if  he  is  a  dealer,  the 
size  and  quality  of  his  stock,  so  that  you  can  learn  how  to 
approach  him.  Much  depends  in  this  case  upon  whether  you 
are  a  wholesale  salesman,  retail  salesman,  or  canvasser,  since 
this  fact  gives  the  key  to  the  special  things  you  must  learn 
about  your  customer.  Generally  speaking,  however,  we  may 
say  that  your  customers  will  be  divided  into  two  classes. 

1.  Those  who  purchase  for  their  own  use. 

2.  Those  who  purchase  for  others. 

In  the  first  class  you  have  the  simple  task  of  enthusing  a 
customer  over  your  commodity,  and  the  better  you  under- 
stand his  desires,  tastes,  and  character,  the  more  readily  you 
will  be  able  to  make  a  sale. 

In  the  second  class  we  are  obliged  to  make  two  subdivisions 
as  follows: 

a.  Those  buyers  who  purchase  goods  to  be  sold  to  the 
trade. 

b.  Those  who  purchase  on  behalf  of  some  friend  for  the 
friend's  personal  use. 

In  either  class  (a)  or  (b)  you  have  two  distinct  classes 
of  customers  with  whom  to  deal. 

1.  Those  who  are  willing,  regardless  of  their  own  personal 
tastes,  to  purchase  of  you  what  they  actually  think  others  will 
desire  to  use.  These  are  the  customers  whose  keen  business 
sense  simplifies  your  problem.  You  have  but  to  convince  such 
men  that  the  public  demands  your  article  at  the  price  at  which 
they  can  afford  to  sell  it  and  you  win  your  case.  If  a  person 
is  buying  to  present  the  article  to  a  friend,  then  you  have 
merely  to  convince  him  that  the  friend  would  want  or  could 
use  that  article. 


20  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

2.  Those  who  have  hobbies  and  prejudices  which  must 
be  overcome  before  they  are  wilhng  to  consider  the  purchase 
of  any  article.  Here  you  have  the  double  difficulty  of  over- 
coming the  prejudice  of  the  customer  and  of  convincing  him 
of  the  salability  of  the  goods. 

The  more  you  engage  in  selling  goods,  the  more  you  will 
recognize  the  truth  of  the  above.  One  merchant  will  be  so 
unprejudiced  in  mind  and  so  absolutely  unsentimental  that  he 
would  buy  anything  in  the  world  if  you  convinced  him  that  he 
could  sell  it  at  a  profit.  Another  who  has  a  dislike  for  gaudy 
neckties  will  refuse  to  buy  the  late  nobby  colors  that  his  com- 
petitor is  selling  by  the  dozens  and  scores  every  day.  An 
interesting  illustration  is  the  case  of  a  clothing  merchant  who 
recently  went  to  the  wall  because  he  was  bitterly  and  violently 
opposed  for  religious  reasons  to  what  he  termed  the  "sporty" 
in  clothing,  and  handled  only  plain  or  old-fashioned  goods. 

In  Class  B  the  salesman  encounters  a  double  difficulty 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  sales  of  this  class  are  usually 
small  and  ought  to  be  easy  to  make  on  this  account.  This 
double  difficulty  is  that  he  not  only  has  to  overcome  the  preju- 
dices of  the  buyer,  but  also  to  convince  him  that  the  article 
will  be  acceptable  to  the  person  for  whom  it  is  intended. 

When  your  customer  has  a  personal  hobby,  you  can  usually 
overcome  it  more  easily  by  having  a  generous  sympathy  with 
it,  than  by  obstinate  opposition.  For  instance,  if  you  are  sell- 
ing a  pneumatic  auto  tire  and  your  customer  favors  a  solid 
tire  that  will  not  puncture,  it  is  usually  best  not  to  start  in  by 
ridiculing  the  solid  tire,  but  to  begin  by  saying  something  like 
this:  *'Yes,  Mr.  Steele,  if  a  man  could  have  a  soft  tire  that 
would  never  puncture  it  would  be  a  fine  thing,  and  the  man 
who  invented  it  could  sell  the  patent  for  a  million  dollars  in 
twenty-four  hours.  But  the  trouble  with  these  hard  tires  is 
that  they  bump  over  rough  roads  so  violently  that  they  injure 
the  machinery  of  the  car,  and  really  cost  more  in  that  way 
than  they  save  in  tires." 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  21 

A  calm,  reasonable  talk  like  this*  will  often  make  a  sale 
where  a  heated  debate  would  lose  it. 

In  selling  to  those  who  purchase  for  their  own  use,  the 
salesman's  first  great  problem  is  to  find  out  what  general 
quality  of  goods  the  customer  prefers  to  use  or  wear  and 
whether  he  is  one  who  would  be  able  to  pay  the  price  for 
goods  of  the  quality  mentioned.  It  is  a  serious  blunder  on 
the  part  of  the  salesman  to  go  ahead  showing  handsome 
articles  to  a  customer  who  he  should  know  is  not  able  to  pay 
the  amount  of  money  they  will  cost.  Such  a  blunder  means 
that  the  salesman  has  educated  the  customer's  taste  in  favor 
of  a  superior  quality  and  make  of  goods,  and  that  when  he 
is  obliged  to  show  him  those  of  a  quality  that  he  can  afford 
they  will  not  look  attractive.  Suppose,  for  instance,  a  gentle- 
man goes  to  a  store  to  buy  a  suit  of  clothes,  and  the  salesman, 
without  noticing  how  the  customer  is  dressed,  or  without 
inquiring  as  to  what  grade  of  clothes  he  wishes  to  purchase, 
proceeds  to  show  him  ready-made  suits  selling  at  $30.00, 
$35.00  and  $40.00.  Eventually  he  finds  a  suit  that  pleases 
the  customer.  The  customer  inquires  the  price.  He  is  told 
that  it  is  $40.00.  He  then  says  he  cannot  afford  to  pay  more 
than  $15.00.  The  salesman  has  put  in  all  this  time  hurting 
his  cause  because  now  the  customer  is  not  likely  to  be  pleased 
with  any  of  those  that  sell  for  $15.00.  He  leaves  the  store 
without  making  a  purchase.  He  goes  into  the  establishment 
of  a  competitor  two  or  three  days  later.  The  competitor's 
salesman  is  clever  enough  to  guess  that  the  customer  wants  a 
$15.00  suit  of  clothes,  or  has  common  sense  enough  to  ask  hirti. 
He  shows  him  $15.00  suits  exclusively.  The  customer  has  by 
this  time  been  away  long  enough  to  have  forgotten  the 
fascination  that  the  $40.00  suit  had  over  him,  and  now  the 
$15.00  suit  looks  attractive  and  respectable,  whereas,  in  com- 
parison with  the  $40.00  suit  seen  several  days  before,  a  $15.00 
suit  had  no  allurements  whatever.  The  customer  is  likely  to 
purchase  the  $15.00  suit  at  this  second  store. 


22  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Write  an  argument  of  fifty  to  seventy-five  words  stating 
what  you  would  say  to  a  buyer  who  admits  that  his  customers 
Hke  your  goods,  but  says  he  is  prejudiced  against  them. 


Special  Exercise 

Come  to  class  prepared  to  discuss  the  customer,  consider- 
ing all  the  points  mentioned  in  the  following  outline  as  they 
might  tend  to  indicate  his  taste,  intelligence,  disposition,  enter- 
prise, or  financial  ability. 


THE  CUSTOMER 


Physical  elements 


His  Height 
Weight 
Age 
Health 
Voice 
Manner 
Expression 
Intelligence  of  speech  Intellectual  ele- 

COURTESY   OF   BEARING  |        mcnts 

Knowledge  of  the  art  of  buying 

Cleanliness  |  Elements  indicating  taste 
Clothing       j 

Appearance  of  his  office 
Cleanliness 
Order 
Expense  of  equipment 

Appearance  of  his  Clerks 
Personal  appearance 
Efficiency 
Evidence  of  good  supervision 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  23 

LESSON  5 
The  Customer  —  Continued 

You  have  now  considered  methods  of  finding  out  the 
dealer's  attitude  toward  your  proposition;  that  is,  methods  of 
determining  to  which  one  of  the  five  classes  of  customers 
(according  to  the  simplicity  of  the  sale)  he  belongs.  You 
have  also  considered  methods  of  discovering  his  personality, 
that  is  to  say,  his  tastes,  desires,  character  and  disposition,  by 
observing  his  surroundings,  appearance  and  conversation. 

You  will  now  study  another  important  series  of  facts  that 
must  be  determined  before  you  proceed  to  make  a  sale. 

You  must  find  out  about  the  size,  needs,  methods,  responsi- 
bility, etc.,  of  his  business. 

The  two  simplest  sources  of  information  are : 

1.     Your  own  observation. 

.2.     Direct  inquiry  of  the  customer. 

The  fact  that  appearances  are  deceptive  and  also  that  some 
customers,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  credit  or  satisfying 
vanity,  might  misinform  you,  makes  it  necessary  sometimes 
for  you  to  seek  other  sources  of  information.  We  will  call 
them: 

3.  Inquiry  from  others. 

4.  Investigation  of  reports  of  Commercial  Associations. 
This  does  not  mean  that  it  is  always  the  salesman's  province 

to  busy  himself  about  an  investigation  of  the  customer's  stand- 
ing; but  there  are  many  salesmen  of  whom  this  is  required 
in  every  case.  In  some  instances,  salesmen  are  held  respon- 
sible by  special  contracts  for  the  payment  of  bills  of  customers ; 
and  when  the  proprietor  is  himself  the  salesman,  he  is  liable 
to  incur  a  heavy  loss  if  he  fails  to  investigate  the  customer's 
business  standing. 

But  there  are  other  things  to  be  considered  besides  the  mere 
condition  of  the  customer's  credit.     There  is  the  question  of 


24  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

the  needs  of  his  business.  It  would  be  very  poor  judgment 
upon  the  part  of  a  salesman  to  expect  t"o  secure  business  year 
after  year  from  a  customer,  after  he  had  sold  that  customer 
everything  he  could  persuade  him  to  buy  regardless  of  his 
needs.  A  salesman  of  great  ability  and  long  experience,  who 
makes  nearly  $10,000.00  a  year,  is  authority  for  the  statement 
that  the  hardest  part  of  his  work  with  many  of  his  customers 
is  to  prevent  them  from  "overloading";  that  is  to  say,  buying 
more  goods  than  the  size  of  their  business  will  warrant.  Of 
course  there  are  irresponsible  salesmen  who  never  expect  to 
sell  to  the  same  man  twice  and  who  never  hope  to  sell  to 
friends  of  their  customers,  but  such  men  as  these  are  not  in 
honest  business  and  need  not  be  considered  in  our  series  of 
lessons. 

The  salesman  should  make  it  a  point  to  observe  also  the 
methods  of  the  man  with  whom  he  is  trading.  If  your  cus- 
tomer is  a  genial,  up-to-date,  hustling,  energetic  fellow,  he  will 
be  likely  to  have  customers  of  the  same  sort.  It  is  quite 
likely  that  the  salesman  will  find  that  this  dealer  needs  entirely 
a  different  kind  of  goods  from  the  conservative,  slow-going 
retailer  whose  list  of  customers  is  composed  of  old  citizens 
of  the  unprogressive  sort. 

If  the  salesman  wishes  to  learn  any  of  the  above  facts 
through  observation,  he  must  take  care  not  to  let  that  observa- 
tion get  too  pointed.  A  salesman  who  walks  through  the 
length  of  the  store,  inquisitively  eyeing  every  clerk  and  offi- 
ciously examining  every  item  of  merchandise  he  can  see,  makes 
a  serious  blunder.  Salesmen  of  this  sort  usually  make  them- 
selves offensive  during  the  process  of  an  argument  or  sale 
by  attempting  to  tell  the  customer  too  much  about  his  own 
business. 

The  same  objection  often  holds  good  when  a  salesman  finds 
out  about  the  business  and  its  needs  by  direct  inquiry  from 
the  customer.  Questions  well  intended  may  be  impertinently 
asked. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  25 

But  the  salesman  often  reaches  the  limit  of  impudence 
when  he  makes  inquiries  of  third  parties.  Sometimes  these 
men  report  his  inquiries  to  his  customers,  and  if  his  questions 
were  of  an  unnecessary  and  critical  sort,  it  is  likely  that  the 
salesman's  chances  to  do  business  with  that  house  in  the 
future  will  be  very  slim. 

The  last  method  (4)  is  always  a  safe  one.  If  a  man's 
credit  is  in  question,  it  is  never  objectionable  for  a  salesman 
to  examine  the  commercial  reports  of  Dun  and  Bradstreet  and 
others,  including  merchants'  lists  compiled  by  associations  in 
the  customer's  town,  if  they  are  reliable. 

Altogether,  the  above  can  be  summarized  in  the  statement 
that,  if  the  salesman  makes  inquiries  regarding  his  customer's 
business,  he  should  always  make  them  in  a  gentlemanly  and 
interested  way.  A  man  of  good  heart- judgment  and  common 
sense  will  not  be  liable  to  err  in  this  matter.  Often  a  con- 
versation can  be  conducted  in  such  a  way  as  to  gain  for  the 
salesman  all  the  desired  information,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
convey  the  impression  that  the  salesman  is  interested  only  in 
the  success  of  the  customer's  business.  There  are  exceptions 
to  all  rules,  but  most  men  are  not  averse  to  telling  of  their 
successes ;  and,  if  the  salesman  can  get  his  customer  to  talking 
about  some  of  the  lines  he  has  handled  successfully  in  his 
business,  he  will  usually  find  a  mine  of  information  as  to  the 
desires,  tastes,  and  disposition  of  his  customer,  and  as  to  the 
methods  and  needs  of  the  business  as  well.  Suppose,  for  in- 
stance, you  are  selling  a  hat  and  notice  that  many  men  on  the 
street  are  wearing  this  hat,  which  you  know  they  must  have 
purchased  from  your  customer.  A  well-directed  remark  upon 
this  topic  will  naturally  start  your  customer  into  a  discussion 
of  the  very  matters  about  which  you  wish  to  hear. 

For  instance,  suppose  you  say:  "Mr.  Jones,  you  know 
the  first  thing  I  saw  when  I  got  off  the  train  this  morning 
was  a  group  of  four  men  standing  in  front  of  the  station,  and 
three  of  these  had  that  Sphinx  hat  on."     The  chances  are 


26  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

that  Mr.  Jones  will  say:  "Yes,  I  had  a  good  season  with 
that  hat." 

Often  you  can  induce  a  man  to  talk  freely  about  the  sale 
of  an  article  in  some  such  way  as  the  one  just  mentioned. 

In  conclusion,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  your  object  in 
ascertaining  various  facts  about  your  customer's  business 
shcfuld  be  to  enable  you  to  help  him  in  his  buying,  and  not 
merely  to  gratify  your  curiosity. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

You  are  selling  a  line  of  lawn  mowers.  Write  a  paragraph 
containing  fifty  to  seventy-five  words  asking  Mr.  Robinson,  a 
hardware  dealer,  what  lines  he  carries,  telling  him  that  you 
are  asking  the  question  in  order  to  find  out  what  machines 
you  must  compete  with  for  his  trade. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship 


27 


CHART  FOUR 


n. 


'Goods  ^ 


Q 

O 
m 

O 

^\ 

X 
H 

W 
X 
H 


2. 


.Services 


Description  of  Goods 
r  Staples  and  Specialties 
-j  Luxuries  and  Necessities 
C  Other  Classifications 


1. 

Sizes 

2. 

Qualities 

3. 

Colors 

4. 

Styles 

5. 

Shapes 

6. 

Quantities 

7. 

Prices  (including  dis- 

counts, etc.) 

8. 

Methods  of  use 

9. 

Reputation  of  house 

10. 

History  of  article 

11. 

Methods,    manufac- 

ture 

12. 

Methods,  production 

13. 

Extent  of  use 

14. 

Opinions  of  others 

15. 

Efficiency 

16. 

Ingredients 

17. 

Equipment 

Your  House — Especially  the  plans  and  proposi- 
tions of  sales  department 
Competitor's  Goods 
Competitor's  House 
The  Market  and  Fashions 

[6.     How  to  Handle  your  Sa„,ples{g-e  o^yTs'l'^ples 
Your  Personal  Services 


Your  Firm's  Services 


Advertising 
Auditing 
Advisory 
Transportation 
Storage,  etc. 


Read  the  above  chart  before  studying  Lesson  6,  and  com- 
pare its  outlines  v^ith  the  smaller  outlines  given  in  the  lesson. 
Consult  it  in  review  after  completing  Lesson  6. 


28  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

LESSON  6 
The  Thing  Sold 

A  statement  that  we  are  now  leaving  the  consideration  of 
the  customer  and  passing  to  the  consideration  of  the  thing  sold 
would  be  improper.  This  is  because  we  must,  throughout  our 
entire  course,  have  in  mind  all  three  factors  of  the  sale;  the 
salesman,  the  customer,  and  the  thing  sold. 

Let  us  say,  therefore,  that  we  are  adding  to  what  we  have 
already  considered,  the  specific  consideration  of  the  thing  sold. 
This  refers  not  only  to  goods  or  merchandise  but  to  anything 
else  that  may  be  offered  for  sale;  as  for  instance,  personal 
services. 

Broadly  considered,  things  sold  are  divided  into  two  classes : 

Necessities, 
Luxuries. 

It  is  very  hard  to  draw  a  line  of  distinction  between  a 
necessity  and  a  luxury.  What  is  a  necessity  differs  with 
different  people.  To  yourself,  for  instance,  clothing  is  a  neces- 
sity. To  a  sick  person,  medical  attention  is  a  necessity;  to  a 
well  person  it  is  not.  To  one  used  to  hardships,  many  articles 
of  food  and  clothing  are  luxuries,  which  have  become  neces- 
sities to  us. 

Things  sold  may  also  be  divided  into  the  two  general 
classes : 

Staples, 
Specialties. 

By  staples,  we  refer  to  all  of  the  principal  commodities 
of  trade,  those  things  that  are  regularly  produced  or  manu- 
factured in  large  quantities.  By  specialties,  we  refer  to  other 
lines  of  goods  not  so  well  known  or  universally  used,  though 
at  times  and  for  certain  businesses,  they  are  perhaps  even 
more  important  than  certain  staples.     Attention  is  called  to 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  29 

these  classifications  to  impress  upon  you  the  fact  that  different 
arguments  must  be  used  by  the  salesman  in  disposing  of  a 
luxury  from  those  he  used  in  selling  a  necessity,  and  similarly 
that  a  very  different  style  of  selling  talk  must  be  used  in 
accomplishing  the  sale  of  a  specialty  from  that  used  when 
the  thing  to  be  sold  is  a  staple. 

A  thorough  study  of  his  goods  is  the  most  important  re- 
quirement of  the  salesman.  It  is  not  logical  to  think  you  can 
sell  one  thing  because  you  have  sold  another. 

Herewith  is  presented  a  list  of  points  concerning  which  the 
salesman  of  any  product  must  be  informed. 

1.  Sizes. 

2.  Qualities. 

3.  Colors. 

4.  Styles. 

5.  Shapes. 

6.  Quantities. 

7.  Prices  (including  discounts,  terms,  etc.). 

8.  Methods  of  use. 

9.  Reputation  of  house. 

10.  History  of  article. 

11.  Methods  of  manufacture. 

12.  Methods  of  production. 

13.  Extent  of.  use. 

14.  Opinions  of  others. 

15.  Efficiency. 

16.  Ingredients. 

17.  Equipment. 

Study  the  above  very  carefully.  Add  other  items  if  you 
can.  The  list  above  is  not  arranged  in  any  logical  order 
except  that  some  of  the  less  easily  understood  points  are  men- 
tioned toward  the  end.  To  illustrate,  in  a  small  way,  how 
each  of  these  points  should  be  studied,  discussions  of  "size," 
"color"  and  "terms"  are  presented.  These  discussions  are  not 
at  all  complete,  but  are  merely  suggestive. 


30  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

Sizes 

The  absurd  mistakes  made  by  many  customers  in  the 
matter  of  size  afford  to  salesmen  much  amusement  and  vexa- 
tion. This  is  especially  true  in  the  retail  trade.  It  is  well 
known  that  many  ladies,  and  men  too  for  that  matter,  insist 
upon  having  a  size  of  shoe  or  glove  which  the  salesman  knows 
will  not  fit.  The  trick  of  putting  a  wrong  size-mark  on  goods 
in  order  to  persuade  the  customer  that  they  fit,  is  an  old  one. 

The  annoyance  from  customers  of  this  sort  is  so  great  in 
some  lines  of  business  that  merchants  leave  size  marks  off 
the  goods  in  order  to  avoid  any  discussions  with  customers. 

Often  the  matter  of  sizes  is  an  important  consideration  in 
the  making  of  a  sale.  A  simple  illustration  of  this  is  seen  in 
the  case  of  the  linen  collar  for  men.  Several  years  ago,  these 
ran  only  in  half  sizes.  Then  certain  dealers  brought  out 
quarter  sizes  and  had  great  success  with  them  because  it 
enabled  them  to  meet  the  needs  of  customers  better. 

There  are  many  other  articles  in  which  the  matter  of  sizes 
is  a  very  important  consideration.  In  the  sale  of  large  articles, 
such  as  stoves,  furniture,  etc.,  it  is  evident  at  once  that  this 
is  one  of  the  important  matters. 

In  selling  stationery  it  is  essential  to  know  the  sizes  that 
are  in  most  common  use  for  various  purposes  and  what  sizes 
will  cut  to  advantage  from  the  stocks  regularly  carried  by  the 
house. 

In  making  displays  of  goods  it  is  essential  to  know  what 
sizes  represent  the  most  ideally  proportioned  and  perfect 
models  of  the  styles  to  be  shown. 

It  is  not  sufficient  for  a  salesman  to  know  the  sizes  in 
which  the  brand  he  carries  run.  He  must  know  all  about  the 
sizes  of  the  article  wherever  manufactured. 

Colors 

There  are  very  few  articles  of  merchandise  manufactured 
in  which  the  selection  of  color  is  not  important.     Sometimes 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  31 

one  color  will  be  cheaper  than  other  colors.  For  instance,  any 
unbleached  or  undyed  article  is  usually  cheaper  than  an  article 
that  is  bleached  or  dyed.  Probably  the  difference  in  prices 
on  account  of  color  is  most  marked  in  the  case  of  precious 
stones,  where  certain  rare  colors  will  command  fabulous  prices, 
though  the  stones  may  not  differ  from  other  stones  in  any 
other  respect.  Often  colors  are  chosen  because  of  their  dura- 
bility. A  red  or  black  stripe  in  a  fancy  cloth  will  not  fade 
as  readily  as  a  pink  or  lavender.  Again,  men  often  select 
gray  clothes  because  they  will  not  show  dust  easily.  Fre- 
quently the  matter  of  color  is  determined  upon  for  the  sake 
of  convenience  or  comfort;  as  for  instance,  green  is  used  on 
a  billiard  table  or  for  a  lamp  shade  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
tecting the  eye.  It  will  pay  any  salesman  to  look  carefully 
into  the  color  of  the  goods  he  is  selling  so  that  he  will  be 
informed  as  to  the  reason  why  certain  colors  are  to  be  pre- 
ferred. The  clothing  salesman  or  the  dry  goods  salesman, 
of  course,  realizes  this  readily.  But  salesmen  in  other  lines 
are  too  apt  to  pass  carelessly  by  such  a  matter  as  not  worthy 
of  their  thought. 

Terms 

The  terms  offered  in  various  lines  of  busmess  are  very 
wide  in  their  scope.  One  method  of  expressing  terms  is  as 
follows : 

2  off  10 

1  off  30 

Net    60 

The  first  one  means  that  if  you  pay  within  ten  days  from 
the  date  of  the  bill,  you  may  take  2%  off.  The  second,  if  you 
pay  within  thirty  days,  you  may  take  1%  off.  The  third,  that 
the  bill  must  be  paid  at  net  price  (i.  e.,  without  discount)  in 
sixty  days. 

Cash  discounts.  Small  discounts  like  the  above  are 
usually  offered  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a  prompt  settlement 


Z2  Lessons  in  Salesmanship 

of  account.  These  are  called  cash  discounts.  Though  sep- 
arately considered  they  are  small,  in  the  aggregate  they  usually 
amount  to  a  great  deal,  depending,  of  course,  on  the  size  of 
the  business  of  the  buyer.  Many  large  firms  consider  their 
saving  from  discounts  as  one  of  the  most,  if  not  the  most, 
important  feature  of  their  business.  It  can  readily  be  seen 
that,  quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  it  will  strengthen  his  credit 
to  pay  promptly,  a  buyer  can  save  money  by  taking  advantage 
of  all  his  discounts.  Suppose  a  customer  is  offered  2%  if  he 
pays  within  ten  days;  that  is  at  the  rate  of  6%  a  month,  or 
72%  a  year.  Many  a  man  who  looks  with  scorn  on  2%  would 
be  shocked  to  learn  that  he  is  losing  $500.00  to  $1,000.00  in 
the  course  of  a  year  through  his  failure  to  take  advantage  of 
discounts.  Men  frequently  fail  in  business  because  they  do 
not  look  to  this  matter.  The  thing  works  two  ways.  They 
not  only  lose  discount  money,  but  they  injure  their  reputations, 
for  people  think  them  unable  to  pay ;  which,  indeed,  they  soon 
become. 

Discount  as  a  consideration  Often  discounts  run  to 
very  large  amounts,  even  50%  or  60%  being  offered  as  an 
extra  inducement  to  secure  trade.  There  is,  unfortunately,  a 
large  class  of  people  in  the  world  who  will  not  buy  a  hat  at 
$3.00,  but  if  you  mark  it  $6.00  and  then  offer  50%  discount 
they  will  buy  at  once.  These  are  the  men  who  look  wide  of 
the  fundamental  principle  laid  down  in  Lesson  1,  that  a  fair 
bargain  must  benefit  both  parties.  They  imagine  that  the  only 
way  to  make  a  profit  is  to  compel  the  salesman  to  part  with 
his  goods  at  far  below  their  actual  value.  Men  of  this  kind 
are  rarely  informed  as  to  prices,  being  as  a  rule  ignorant 
buyers,  and  the  salesman  accomplishes  his  purpose  by  putting 
his  price  up  in  the  first  place.  Another  interesting  feature  of 
the  subject  of  terms  and  discounts  is  that  often  a  series  of 
discounts  is  offered  on  the  same  purchase.  For  instance,  a 
well  known  corporation  secures  discounts  from  some  firms 
somewhat  as  follows:     10%  off  from  the  list  price  simply  as 


Elements   of   Salesmanship  33 

an  ordinary  trade  discount ;  10%  off  what  is  left  in  considera- 
tion of  the  trade  of  all  branches  of  the  corporation  for  the 
article  in  question;  3%  off  the  remainder  for  cash. 

Trade  discounts.  Articles  sold  in  the  hardware  trade  run 
to  innumerable  sizes.  Discounts  are  used  largely  to  save  cor- 
recting the  whole  list  when  prices  change,  one  change  of  dis- 
count often  covering  prices  on  one  hundred  articles,  each  at  a 
different  list  price. 

The  f.  o.  b.  specification  is  an  important  part  of  the 
terms  of  sale  and  should  never  be  overlooked.  It  makes  con- 
siderable difference  whether  you  or  the  customer  pays  carry- 
ing charges,  and  the  point  should  always  be  plainly  specified. 

Dating  is  another  point  that  is  a  natural  part  of  the  terms 
oi  sale.  Many  houses  allow  long  dating  in  order  to  induce 
early  buying,  as  many  factories  make  up  all  goods  "to  order" 
and  carry  no  stock  made  up. 

In  some  lines  goods  must  be  paid  for  in  ten  days  from 
date  of  shipment,  which  often  necessitates  payment  while  goods 
are  in  transit.  In  such  cases  it  is  customary  to  draw  on  the 
customer,  and  if  such  draft  is  to  be  made,  the  customer  should 
always  understand  the  arrangement  thoroughly. 

In  General 

Each  of  the  points  mentioned  in  the  list  at  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter  should  be  studied  thoroughly  and  in  detail  as 
you  have  studied  sizes,  colors,  and  terms.  The  relative  im- 
portance of  each  point  will  depend  upon  the  kind  of  article 
studied. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(The  student  may  select  any  one  Exercise.) 

1.  You  are  a  collar  salesman.  Write  fifty  to  seventy-five 
words  to  convince  Mr.  Johnson  that  he  should  buy  your  collar, 
because  it  runs  in  one-quarter  sizes,  while  your  competitor's 
runs  only  in  half  sizes. 


34  Lessons   in    Salesmanship  / 

2.  You  are  a  farm  implement  salesman.  Write  fifty  to 
seventy-five  words  to  convince  a  farmer  that  he  should  buy 
your  plow  because  you  will  extend  to  him  better  terms  than 
your  competitor  who  asks  a  slightly  smaller  price,  but  whose 
terms  are  cash. 

3.  You  are  the  competitor  of  the  salesman  mentioned  in 
exercise  2.  Write  fifty  to  seventy-five  words  to  convince  the 
farmer  that  he  should  take  your  lower  price  and  pay  the  cash. 

Note.  In  exercises  2  and  3,  consider  that  the  difference  in 
price  is  exactly  equal  to  the  discount  offered  by  one  of  the 
salesmen. 


LESSON  7 
The  Thing  Sold  — Continued 

Examine  once  more  the  list  of  points  suggested  in  Lesson 
6,  under  the  heading  "Description  of  Goods."  Take  one  of 
these  points,  the  topic  of  price,  and  see  how  it  is  affected  by 
the  other  items  mentioned  in  the  list  under  "Description  of 
Goods,"  and  other  points. 

L  Sizes.  Ordinarily  smaller  sizes  of  articles  cost  less 
and  larger  ones  more.  Yet  there  are  some  cases,  as  for  in- 
stance, certain  kinds  of  watches,  in  which  it  is  cheaper  to 
make  a  large  article  than  a  small  one. 

2.  Colors.  Sometimes  the  beauty  of  a  color  is  a  justifi- 
cation for  increasing  the  price  of  an  article.  Sometimes  the 
expense  in  manufacturing  that  color  affects  the  price.  Some- 
times the  serviceability  of  the  color  affects  the  price. 

3.  Styles.  Many  elements  are  to  be  considered  in  the 
style  of  a  piece  of  goods.  Sometimes  it  is  expensive  because 
it  is  unusual  or  difficult  to  make;  sometimes  because  it  is 
attractive. 

4.  Quantities.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  know  the  quantities 
in  which  your  goods  are  measured.     Find  out  why  they  are 


Elements   of   Salesmanship  35 

measured  as  they  are,  and  be  prepared  to  show  every  advantage 
that  can  be  shown  from  this  when  talking  price.  Certain 
articles  once  sold  by  measure  are  now  sold  by  weight,  to 
arrive  at  a  fair  method  of  fixing  price.  The  proper  handling 
or  care  of  an  article  may  require  that  it  be  sold  in  the  quan- 
tities in  which  you  sell  it.  The  purchase  of  unusually  large 
or  unusually  small  quantities,  however  measured,  affects  price. 

5.  Purposes  and  methods  of  use.  If  the  article  is 
adapted  to  many  purposes,  each  one  must  be  understood  and 
explained.  If  it  is  simple  of  operation,  this  may  affect  its  price. 
If  it  is  a  time-saving  or  labor-saving  device,  its  price  will  also 
be  effected  by  that  fact,  as  will  be  the  case  if  it  is  a  pleasure- 
giving  device. 

6.  Terms  of  its  sale.  The  nominal  price  of  goods  is 
often  affected  by  the  terms  of  its  sale.  If  there  are  discounts, 
they,  of  course,  affect  the  price.  Or  if  there  are  time  payments, 
that  frequently  has  an  important  effect.  Sometimes  a  great 
deal  of  money  can  be  saved  through  payment  by  installments, 
and,  in  any  of  these  cases,  the  salesman  must  be  thoroughly 
prepared  to  present  all  arguments  in  favor  of  the  particular 
plan. 

7.  Reputation  of  your  house.  If  your  firm's  reputation 
is  such  as  to  serve  as  a  guarantee  of  quality,  naturally  the 
price  will  be  affected.  If  the  reputation  of  the  house  is  all 
right,  the  price  will  be  right.  This  is  frequently  an  interesting 
and  convincing  argument.  Sometimes  the  popularity  of  the 
make  also  has  an  influence  on  the  price  which  the  customer 
should  be  asked  to  pay. 

8.  The  history  of  the  article  affects  the  price  in  many 
instances.  This  is  especially  true  if  the  article  is  valuable 
because  of  its  associations,  or  its  foreign  make,  or  because  it 
is  a  curio.  The  salesman  who  is  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  an  article,  therefore,  has  arguments  at  his  com- 
mand that  will  prove  convincing  when  the  price  is  under  dis- 
cussion. 


36  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

9.  Cost  of  production  and  manufacture.  The  salesman 
must  explain  the  cost  of  production  and  manufacture  to  his 
customer  in  such  a  convincing  way  as  to  make  the  price  seem 
reasonable. 

Furniture  can  be  varnished  by  dipping  into  a  barrel  of 
varnish  (a  favorite  method  with  cheap  chairs,  etc.)  much  more 
cheaply  than  it  can  be  varnished  by  hand  with  a  brush,  but  the 
results  are  different. 

10.  Extent  of  use.  If  the  public  demands  a  certain 
article,  the  dealer  can  be  required  to  pay  more  for  it  on  account 
of  that  demand,  because  he  may  not  have  to  advertise  it  so 
extensively  or  push  it  so  energetically.  Sometimes  it  can  be 
sold  at  a  much  higher  price  than  its  actual  intrinsic  value  on 
account  of  this  popularity.  For  instance,  the  recently  popular 
Teddy  Bears  sold  for  $2.00  to  $5.00,  when  intrinsically  they 
were  worth  nothing  near  that  amount. 

11.  Opinions  of  others.  Frequently  a  customer  thinks 
a  price  is  wrong  but  can  be  convinced  if  he  is  clearly  shown 
that  others  whose  judgment  he  values  consider  the  price  right. 

12.  The  increasing  value  of  the  article  is  often  a  most 
important  feature  in  settling  its  price.  For  instance,  a  man 
buys  a  lot  sometimes  at  more  than  its  ordinary  appraisement 
because  he  is  convinced  that  the  price  is  going  up. 

13.  Sometimes  the  article  is  "self-supporting" — that  is,  it 
pays  for  itself.  This  is  an  argument  frequently  advanced  for 
the  typewriter,  adding  machine,  business  phonograph  and  other 
machines  that  enable  employers  to  conduct  their  business  with 
fewer  employees.  This  argument  can  also  be  advanced  in 
favor  of  productive  articles,  such  as  flowers,  trees,  live  stock, 
etc. 

14.  The  guarantees  your  house  makes  often  affect  the 
price  considerably.  For  instance,  if  you  agree  to  refund  the 
money  or  make  some  other  reparation  if  the  goods  are  not 
found  to  be  as  represented,  you  can  more  readily  secure  the 
price  you  ask. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  37 

15.  The  PRICE  OF  YOUR  competitor's  goods  often  affects 
the  reasonableness  of  your  price.  A  buyer  may  beHeve  that 
you  are  asking  too  much  profit,  yet  if  you  can  show  him  that 
you  are  asking  less  than  your  competitor  he  may  be  persuaded 
to  buy  of  you. 

16.  The  reputation  of  your  competitor's  goods  or  your 
competitor's  house,  if  unfavorable,  will  have  a  tendency  to 
enable  you  to  get  better  prices  for  your  goods.  It  is  a  bad 
plan,  however,  for  a  salesman  to  use  this  argument  too  boldly. 

17.  The  fashions,  if  they  have  created  a  demand  for  the 
goods  you  have,  affect  the  price  favorably. 

This  lesson  has  gone  into  considerable  detail  in  naming 
some  things  that  affect  the  price  of  goods,  yet  it  barely  skims 
the  surface.  There  are  innumerable  points  affecting  prices, 
and  since  the  same  is  true  regarding  sizes,  colors,  styles,  and 
all  the  other  topics  to  be  considered  in  gaining  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  your  goods,  then  the  study  of  your  goods  is  a 
matter  of  prime  importance.  Study  the  foregoing  suggestions 
until  you  are  able  to  apply  them  to  any  item  that  you  have  to 
sell.  It  is  as  foolish  for  a  salesman  to  try  to  sell  goods  without 
learning  how  to  describe  them  attractively,  as  it  would  be  for 
an  advertiser  to  commit  the  same  error.  Always  study  the 
article  you  have  for  sale  so  that  you  know  every  possible  thing 
you  could  say  about  it  that  will  be  of  interest  to  your  customer 
or  of  assistance  to  you. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 

You  are  a  clothing  salesman.  Describe  the  advantages  of 
your  line  as  to  color,  using  the  name  of  your  customer,  Mr. 
Kemper,  in  your  exercise. 


38  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

LESSON  8 
The  Thing  Sold  —  Continued 

Let  us  see  how  another  of  the  items  in  our  Hst  of  descriptive 
points  can  be  affected  by  the  remaining  items  on  the  Hst.  We 
shall  take  "size"  as  an  illustration. 

The  QUALITY  will  affect  the  sizes  in  the  case  of  some  articles 
where  large  sizes  would  be  too  expensive;  also,  in  some 
cases  where  a  better  quality  can  be  secured  in  some  sizes  than 
in  others. 

The  COLOR  would  affect  the  size  of  an  article  when  the 
coloring  matter  used  is  expensive. 

The  STYLE  would  affect  the  size  in  a  very  marked  degree 
especially  in  the  case  of  clothing,  furniture,  or  ornaments 
where  there  is  necessity  of  fit.  Style  regulates  the  size  of 
almost  everything  when  there  is  not  a  mechanical  reason  that 
it  should  remain  in  a  fixed  size  from  year  to  year. 

Quantities  affect  sizes  in  a  very  direct  way,  as  the  sizes 
of  some  articles  are  regulated  by  the  quantities  in  which  they 
must  be  sold  or  used.  An  advertiser  issuing  100  circulars  may 
not  give  any  attention  to  whether  the  sheet  is  8  x  10  or  9  x  12. 
But  if  he  issues  1,000,000,  the  slight  difference  in  size  will  be 
a  matter  materially  affecting  the  cost. 

Price  and  terms  regulate  sizes  in  cases  where  the  cus- 
tomer's desires  as  to  prices  and  terms  must  be  met  by  selling 
smaller  sizes. 

Methods  of  use  affect  size ;  large,  heavy  articles  will  some- 
times stand  wear  better  than  small  ones,  and  small  articles  will 
often  prove  more  convenient  than  large  ones. 

The  reputation  of  the  house  has  a  decided  effect  upon 
the  size  of  the  product,  when  an  article  of  a  certain  size  is 
ordered  and  promised. 

The  history  of  the  article,  of  course,  affects  the  size 
and  shape,  since  we  are  prone  to  do  what  our  forefathers  have 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  39 

done,  and  to  use  articles  of  a  given  size  and  shape  because 
they  have  been  in  that  given  size  and  shape  for  many  years 

Methods  of  manufacture  affect  sizes;  economy  in  pro- 
duction demands  that  certain  things,  shall  be  made  in  certain 
sizes,  so  as  to  cut  well  out  of  the  piece. 

What  is  true  of  methods  of  manufacture  is  equally  true  of 
methods  of  production. 

The  extent  of  use  also  affects  the  size;  certain  articles 
must  be  made  in  certain  sizes  to  prevent  the  damage  that  it 
is  known  certain  sizes  will  receive  in  transportation,  changes 
of  climate,  etc.,  which  might  not  be  true  of  other  sizes. 

Certainly  nothing  affects  sizes  much  more  definitely  than 
the  opinion  of  users;  this  is  the  very  thing  that  causes  certain 
articles  to  be  made  in  given  sizes. 

To  prove  that  the  size  of  an  article  is  affected  by  its  shape 
requires  no  argument ;  a  brittle  article  designed  to  pass  through 
a  six-inch  hole  could  not  support  its  own  weight  if  it  were 
half  a  mile  long. 

The  efficiency  of  an  article  certainly  affects  its  size;  if 
it  can  be  made  of  more  use  by  being  made  small  or  large,  the 
maker  will  at  once  increase  its  efficiency  by  altering  its  size. 

The  EQUIPMENT  of  an  article  affects  its  size;  in  many 
cases  a  large  size  is  desired  to  contain  a  large  equipment. 

Size  is  affected  by  location,  when  the  space  in  the  given 
location  requires  that  the  article  be  small  or  large  in  order 
either  to  fit  or  to  be  appropriate  in  appearance. 

The  INGREDIENTS  of  which  an  article  is  made  also  have  a 
most  direct  effect  upon  its  size,  since  some  ingredients  will 
cause  the  article  to  shrink  and  others  will  compel  it  to  expand. 
Some  materials  are  stronger  than  others.  If  a  wooden  beam 
is  replaced  by  a  steel  one,  the  steel  beam  can  be  much  smaller 
and  will  do  the  same  work. 

Just  one  point  has  been  mentioned  in  connection  with  each 
item  above,  merely  to  show  you  that  each  one  of  these  items 
or  facts  about  your  goods  must  be  taken  in  correlation  with 

% 


40  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

all  others.  The  above  paragraphs  can  scarcely  be  taken  as 
anything  else  than  merely  suggestive.  We  shall  not  consume 
time  by  taking  up  each  one  of  these  items  or  points  of  interest 
regarding  an  article,  and  showing  how  all  the  others  affect  it. 
The  student  may  do  so  for  himself  with  a  few  or  all  of  the 
articles,  but  at  least  with  one.  The  point  to  be  gained  is,  that 
such  an  exercise  as  this  will  impress  upon  the  student  the 
necessity  of  his  understanding  every  detail  about  his  goods 
because  the  investigation  or  examination  of  the  salesman's 
goods  in  any  one  feature  is  sure  to  bring  to  his  attention  other 
features  connected  with  it,  to  which  he  has  never  before  given 
his  attention.  After  all,  your  success  as  a  salesman  will  depend 
upon  your  knowledge  of  the  three  factors  of  a  sale,  of  which 
the  thing  sold  is  one. 

The  salesman  undertaking  the  study  of  any  product  can 
scarcely  do  it  in  a  better  way  than  to  consider,  all  the  points 
named  in  the  foregoing  list,  and  to  consider  each  point  as  it 
is  or  may  be  affected  by  all  the  rest.  This  is  a  big  task.  If 
there  are  nineteen  points,  each  to  be  considered  by  itself  and 
in  its  relation  to  eighteen  other  points,  there  will  be  a  total 
of  nearly  four  hundred  points  about  the  goods  to  be  thought 
over  and  analyzed — a  laborious  task,  but  one  that  will  result 
in  an  analysis  of  your  goods  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  for 
you  to  make  as  thoroughly  in  any  other  way. 

If  the  student  will  take  up  each  of  the  points  mentioned  in 
Lesson  6  as  we  have  already  taken  up  the  topics  of  prices, 
terms  and  sizes,  applying  them  to  a  specific  article,  he  will 
learn  his  article  in  a  wonderfully  definite  way. 

The  following  story  will  illustrate  the  value  of  study  and 
analysis  of  the  product  one  is  handling.  A  soap  salesman  wrote 
his  house  that  a  competitor  was  selling  a  certain  scented  toilet 
soap  of  same  weight,  odor,  color  and  wrapper  as  his  own  at 
twenty  per  cent  less  than  his  price,  and  that  he  could  get 
no  business  on  that  article.  The  manager  went  out  and  bought 
a  piece  of  the  competitor's  soap,  cut  it  up  and  examined  it. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  41 

He  found  that  the  color  did  not  run  clear  through.  It  was 
bathed.  The  wrapper  alone  was  perfumed — not  the  soap.  It 
was  easy  to  sell  the  good  article  when  this  was  known,  but  the 
salesman  should  have  discovered  it  for  himself  and  saved  sev- 
eral orders  that  he  lost. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Write  as  tersely  as  possible  a  paragraph  showing  how  styles 
are  modified  or  influenced  by  one  of  the  items  in  the  list  given 
in  Lesson  6,  selecting  any  article  for  illustration. 


LESSON  9 

The  Salesman's  House 

In  addition  to  knowing  about  the  goods  themselves  you 
must  know  many  things  about  your  house. 

History  of  the  House 

You  should  know  the  history  of  your  house.  You  should 
know  the  names  of  salesmen  and  proprietors  who  were  in- 
terested in  it  before  you  came.  Otherwise  you  will  be  con- 
stantly running  across  customers  who  know  more  about  the 
history  of  your  house  than  you  do  yourself,  men  who  may 
desire  to  talk  to  you  about  these  old  fellows — and  you  can 
give  them  no  information.  How  disappointed  an  old  customer 
often  is  when  a  new  salesman  comes  to  town  who  can  tell 
him  nothing  about  what  the  former  representative  of  his  house 
is  doing,  where  he  has  gone,  or  anything  else  of  interest  about 
his  house.  This  is,  however,  only  one  of  the  minor  reasons 
w^hy  you  should  know  the  facts  above  mentioned.  You  must 
be  in  thorough  touch  with  the  history  of  your  house,  if  pos- 
sible, for  many  reasons.  It  will  strengthen  your  confidence  in 
your  firm  to  know  how  it  has  done  business  for  forty  or  fifty 

% 


42  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

years.  Or  if  it  is  a  new  firm  that  has  just  become  prominent, 
it  will  be  of  interest  and  value  to  you  and  give  energy  and 
spice  to  your  work  to  know  that.  Any  good  firm  will  bear 
looking  into;  and  if  a  firm  has  not  a  clear  record,  you  should 
know  that  also. 

It  is  as  important  for  you  as  a  salesman  to  know  the  his- 
tory of  the  business  with  which  you  are  connected,  and  of 
other  houses  in  a  similar  line,  as  it  is  for  you  as  a  citizen  to 
understand  the  national  history.  We  learn  lessons  from  his- 
tory. A  knowledge  of  the  mistakes  and  successes  of  the  busi- 
ness in  the  past  will  prevent  us  from  making  the  same  mistakes 
and  inspire  us  to  repeat  the  successes. 

The  Sales  Department 

It  is  especially  important,  however,  for  you  to  understand 
the  plans  and  propositions  of  your  own  department,  that  is, 
the  sales  department.  There  are  many  firms  that  go  on  the 
principle  that  if  a  salesman  is  thoroughly  familiar  with  their 
goods  and  with  their  propositions,  the  sale  will  take  care  of 
itself.  There  is  a  great  error  in  this,  of  course,  for  no  selling 
will  "take  care  of  itself" ;  but  it  points  the  way  toward  a  great 
truth.  The  fundamental  preparation  for  your  work  as  a 
salesman  is  a  thorough  knowledge  of  what  you  are  trying  to 
sell  and  the  terms  upon  which  it  will  be  offered  to  customers. 

Facts  About  the  Business 

There  are  possibly  no  two  firms  that  expect  their  salesmen 
to  know  exactly  the  same  facts  about  the  business.  The  variety 
of  opinions  on  this  topic  runs  the  whole  gamut.  There  are 
some  houses  whose  salesmen  never  go  inside  the  office  or  the 
factory  and  never  have  any  acquaintance  with  their  employers 
except  by  correspondence.  There  are  other  firms  that  refuse 
to  put  a  man  on  the  road  until  he  has  spent  a  year  or  two  in 
the  factory  or  stock  room,  learning  all  the  details  of  the  manu- 
facturing or  buying  end  of  the  business. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  43 

It  is  safe  to  say,  however,  that  the  average  business  house 
of  today  prefers  its  salesmen  to  be  thoroughly  conversant  with 
all  of  the  facts  pertaining  to  the  goods  and  their  manufacture, 
handling  and  transportation,  since  these  facts  and  the  argu- 
ments based  upon  them  are  frequently,  even  usually,  very 
important  factors  in  a  salesman's  success. 

Suppose  you  are  selling  an  article  that  is  required  by  law 
or  public  opinion  to  be  made  under  sanitary  conditions  to 
prevent  the  spread  of  disease  or  to  guarantee  freshness,  a  good 
state  of  preservation,  or  other  points  of  quality.  Such  require- 
ments are  essential  in  the  grocery  line.  A  salesman  of  canned 
groceries  not  informed  as  to  how  his  goods  are  protected 
against  disease  germs,  would  miss  many  sales  that  would  be 
readily  made  by  a  competitor  thoroughly  qualified  to  inform 
his  customers  about  the  sanitary  conditions  under  which  his 
goods  were  manufactured.  The  same  illustration  holds  good 
regarding  almost  any  characteristic  or  attribute  of  the  goods. 
For  instance,  take  the  matter  of  size.  In  many  cases  it  is 
necessary  for  you  to  guarantee  that  the  size  will  remain  the 
same,  that  is,  that  it  will  not  expand  or  shrink.  A  knowledge 
of  how  the  goods  were  manufactured  may  help  you  explain 
this  point.  Again,  take  the  matter  of  color.  A  man  can  see 
what  the  color  is  when  you  are  showing  him  the  goods,  but 
only  a  knowledge  of  how  the  goods  were  made  will  enable 
you  to  explain  to  him  why  its  color  is  fast  color  and  will 
neither  fade  nor  change  in  any  other  way,  why  it  is  non- 
poisonous,  etc. 

From  the  above  we  have  discovered  that  a  knowledge  of 
the  inner  workings  of  the  house  is  valuable  in  helping  you 
understand  your  goods,  but  there  are  many  other  ways  in 
which  it  is  beneficial.  It  will  enable  you  to  tell  interesting 
things  about  your  product,  and  often  you  can  arouse  a  cus- 
tomer's interest  in  your  goods  by  telling  him  some  peculiar 
and  remarkable  fact  about  their  manufacture  or  the  way  they 
are  handled.     How  much  better  it  is  to  say  to  the  customer, 


44  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

"When  I  was  in  the  house  three  weeks  ago,  I  saw  over  a 
carload  of  these  books  ready  for  shipment  to  every  state  in 
the  union.  The  manager  told  me  that  the  sales  have  reached 
82,500."  How  much  better  it  is  to  say  something  like  the 
above  than  merely  to  say,  "These  books  are  sold  in  large  quan- 
tities." Of  course,  many  facts  can  be  learned  from  your 
house  by  correspondence,  but  it  is  generally  conceded  that  the 
salesman  will  never  tell  them  as  enthusiastically  if  he  knows 
nothing  about  methods  of  manufacture,  as  he  will  if  he  is 
filled  to  the  brim  with  information  gathered  from  personal 
observation. 

You  have  learned  that  the  salesman  will  know  more  about 
the  goods,  will  describe  them  more  enthusiastically,  will  make 
fewer  errors,  will  impress  his  customer  more  favorably,  and 
will  understand  the  plans  and  propositions  of  the  sales  depart- 
ment more  thoroughly  if  he  keeps  in  close  touch  with  his 
house.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  in  addition  to  all  of  the 
reasons  above  given,  the  salesman  will  get  an  inspiration 
through  frequent  visits  to  the  house,  and  an  understanding  of 
its  processes  of  manufacture,  that  will  be  of  great  value. 

But  the  salesman  must  bear  in  mind  constantly  the  very 
important  fact  that  while  it  is  desirable  to  know  all  these 
things  about  his  house,  it  is  very  much  more  important  that 
he  learn  not  to  worry  or  bother  about  things  that  are  going 
on  at  the  house,  nor  to  become  unduly  busy  in  concerning 
himself  with  the  affairs  that  are  not  connected  with  his  daily 
work.  It  is  the  failure  of  some  salesmen  to  recognize  this 
important  principle,  that  causes  certain  houses  to  discourage 
visits  to  the  house  by  their  salesmen. 

A  man  can  get  into  more  difficulties  in  one  day  attending 
to  other  people's  business  than  in  a  year  attending  to  his  own. 
Remember  that,  and  remember  that  you  are  to  sell  goods. 
Whatever  investigation  you  may  make  of  the  history  and 
matters  of  your  house  must  be  solely  for  the  purpose  of  helping 
you  to  sell  goods. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  45 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Select  any  article  from  the  following  list* : 
Typewriter.  Hat.  Dictionary. 

Suit  of  Clothes.  Automobile.  Diamond  Ring. 

Sack  of  Flour.  Lawn  Mower.  Advertising  Space. 

Fountain  Pen.  Rug.  City  Lot. 

You  are  salesman  for  this  article,  or  you  may  select  any 
other  article  if  you  wish.  Write  fifty  to  seventy-five  words 
in  answer  to  the  statement,  "Your  goods  are  not  well  made." 
Refer  in  your  answer  to  some  method  of  manufacture  or 
production  used  by  your  house  to  produce  well-made  goods. 


LESSON  10 

Your  Competitor's  House 

Not  only  must  you  know  about  your  goods  and  your 
house,  but  you  will  find  it  much  to  the  point  to  learn  about 
your  competitor's  goods  and  your  competitor's  house.  As  a 
general  rule,  it  pays  a  salesman  to  talk  about  and  think  about 
only  his  own  goods  and  not  to  spend  much  time  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  those  sold  by  his  competitor.  You  can  always  get 
more  business  by  pushing  your  own  article  than  by  speaking 
disparagingly  of  your  competitor's  article.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  times  when  every  salesman  must  be  prepared  to  speak 
precisely  and  truthfully  of  the  goods  of  his  competitor. 
Remember,  however,  that  you  have  accomplished  nothing  when 
you  have  destroyed  faith  in  your  competitor's  goods  unless  by 
the  contrast  you  have  fastened  the  buyer's  mind  upon  the 
excellence  of  your  own.  What  would  you  think  of  a  pencil 
salesman  who  would  advance  to  the  buyer  and  say,  handing 

*The  teacher  may  add  to  the  above  list  the  names  of  any  other  article  of  merchan- 
dise in  which  he  knows  that  certain  of  his  pupils  are  interested. 


46  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

him  a  pencil:  "What  do  you  think  of  this  for  a  pencil?" 
The  buyer  would  use  the  pencil,  whereupon  the  point  would 
break,  and  the  buyer  would  say  that  it  was  not  a  good  pencil. 
To  this  the  salesman  would  say:  "Of  course  it  is  not;  for 
that  is  sold  by  my  competitor";  and  immediately  leave  the 
store  without  any  attempt  to  sell  his  own  goods.  You  would 
undoubtedly  think  him  a  fool;  and  yet  many  salesmen  con- 
stantly talk  against  their  competitor's  goods  in  much  the  same 
manner,  forgetting  that  it  is  far  more  important  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  virtues  of  their  own  goods  than  to  point  out  the 
faults  of  their  competitor's.  Let  the  competitor's  goods  be 
secondary  if  mentioned  at  all. 

The  Market  and  Fashions 

Other  important  things  that  must  be  studied  by  the  sales- 
man are  the  market  and  the  fashions.  The  salesman  who 
does  not  subscribe  regularly  to  the  trade  magazines  and  other 
publications  devoted  to  the  interests  of  his  business,  makes 
a  serious  mistake,  as  does  the  salesman  who  fails  to  collect 
all  the  advertisements  of  his  own  house  and  his  competitor's 
house  that  he  can  possibly  secure  and  study  them  thoroughly. 
In  addition  to  these  things,  the  salesman  should  make  use  of 
that  keen  power  of  observation  which  we  discussed  in  Lesson 
5.  His  observation  should  include  not  only  the  desires,  tastes, 
character,  and  disposition  of  his  customer,  but  it  should 
broaden  out  and  take  in  the  entire  field  of  retail  trade  upon 
which  his  customer  depends.  He  must  always  have  an  open 
eye  to  see  what  people  want,  what  people  are  having,  and 
what  they  insist  upon. having.  What  would  you  think  of  a 
salesman  who  sold  plate  glass  and  art  glass,  who  upon  going 
into  a  stylish  city  would  not  take  the  pains  to  look  at  the 
windows  of  houses  and  great  business  establishments  to  see 
what  the  world  was  doing  in  the  line  in  which  he  was  in- 
terested? Do  not  take  anyone  else's  word  for  these  things. 
Form  the  habit  of  observing  for  yourself. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  47 

Summary 

The  last  five  lessons  have  given  a  method  of  analyzing  an 
article  of  merchandise.  The  same  rules  of  analysis  apply  to 
the  study  of  anything  else  that  is  offered  for  sale.  Advertising 
space,  services,  privileges,  concessions,  office  room,  seats  at  an 
entertainment,  or  anything  else  to  be  sold,  should  be  analyzed 
by  the  salesman  by  a'  similar  method  before  a  sale  is  attempted. 
The  salesman  should  understand  the  thing  sold;  he  should 
"know  what  he  is  talking  about,"  no  matter  what  special  thing 
he  has  for  sale. 

We  now  have  the  five  general  divisions  under  the  heading 
"The  thing  sold."    They  are :  ^ 

1.  Facts  about  your  goods. 

2.  Facts  about  your  house. 

3.  Facts  about  your  competitor's  goods. 

4.  Facts  about  your  competitor's  house. 

5.  The  market  and  fashions. 

How  to  Handle  Your  Samples 

Many  salesmen  fail  without  knowing  why,  when  the  reason 
lies  entirely  in  the  fact  that  their  samples  have  not  been 
handled  carefully  and  have  either  been  broken,  injured  or 
soiled.  The  care  of  samples  is  a  matter  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance, for  no  buyer  will  look  favorably  upon  the  purchase 
of  goods  if  the  samples  are  not  in  good  shape.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  display  of  samples.  These  subjects  are  worthy  of 
the  most  careful  thought,  and  salesmen  who  succeed  must 
realize  their  importance.  It  is  not  honest  for  samples  to  be 
made  of  better  material  and  quality  than  the  goods  to  be 
delivered,  but  it  is  certainly  not  only  fair  but  extremely  im- 
portant that  they  be  fully  up  to  grade  and  exhibited  in  the 
most  attractive  way. 


48  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

The  Sale  of  Services 

There  are  many  other  things  to  be  sold  other  than  mer- 
chandise, and  it  is  important  for  the  student  to  reahze  this. 

Every  man's  services  must  be  sold  to  his  employer.  Per- 
sonal services  are  bought,  just  as  goods  are  bought.  The 
lawyer  sells  his  services  to  his  client,  the  doctor  to  his  patient, 
the  preacher  to  his  congregation,  the  President  of  the  United 
States  to  his  nation,  the  railroad  "hand"  to  his  section  boss. 

The  elements  of  salesmanship  are  the  same,  namely: 
Accuracy 
Industry 
Personality 
Argument 
Persuasion 
and  all  other  qualities  akin  to  them. 

The  factors  are  similar. 

The  Salesman  (Employee) 
The  Customer  (Employer) 
The  Thing  Sold  (Personal  Services). 

If  the  student  should  never  be  a  salesman  of  merchandise, 
the  rules  of  this  course  in  regard  to  scientific  salesmanship 
would  apply  to  him  with  equal  force  in  his  effort  to  dispose 
of  his  personal  services.  His  success  in  selling  his  personal 
services  depends  on  his  knowledge  of  these  three  factors  and 
how  to  combine  them  to  bring  about  a  sale.    He  must 

1.  Study  to  improve  himself  (The  salesman), 

2.  Study  the  employer  (His  customer), 

3      Learn  to  analyze  his  personal  services  (the  thing  sold) 
so  as  to  successfully  describe  or  demonstrate  its  value  to  his 
employer,  the  customer.     Besides  the  direct  sale  of  personal 
services,  there  is  the 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  49 

Sale  of  a  Firm's  Services 

Advertising.  Many  big  firms  do  nothing  except  write  and 
handle  advertisements  for  others.  Ad-writing  speciaHsts  are 
to  be  found  in  every  large  city  or  town  in  the  United  States. 

Auditing.  Firms  and  individuals  make  a  business  of 
auditing  books,  systematizing  records  and  accounting  systems, 
etc. 

Advisory.  There  are  thousands  of  men  employed  in  the 
world  as  advisors.  The  directors  of  large  companies  are 
sometimes  retained  merely  for  their  advisory  services.  A  large 
part  of  the  work  of  lawyers  and  doctors  is  merely  advisory. 

Transportation.  This  is  the  thing  sold  by  railroads, 
steamship  companies,  street  car  lines,  taxicab  and  livery  com- 
panies, express  companies,  the  U.  S.  Post  Office  Department, 
etc     Transportation  is  one  of  our  largest  industries. 

Storage  and  living  accommodations.  The  owners  of 
buildings  which  are  rented  for  the  occupancy  of  people,  animals 
or  merchandise,  must  sell  their  privilege  of  occupancy.  They, 
or  the  real  estate  agents  whom  they  employ,  must  be  good 
salesmen  if  the  income  on  the  property  is  to  be  steady. 

In  short,  every  person  or  firm  with  services  for  sale  must 
depend  upon  the  salesmanship  element  of  business  for  success 
just  as  a  manufacturing  or  retailing  establishment  does.  It  is 
this  consideration  that  gives  the  topic  of  salesmanship  its  broad 
significance  as  the  fundamental  science  of  modern  business. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Select  any  of  the  articles  referred  to  in  the  list  in  Lesson  9, 
and  write  either  of  the  following  exercises: 

1.  Give  three  interesting  facts  that  might  arise  from  your 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  your  house. 

2.  Give  three  facts  that  might  be  interesting  arising  from 
comparisons  with  the  competitor's  goods. 

3.  Give  three  facts  that  might  be  interesting  about  the 
markets  and  fashions  in  this  particular  line  of  goods. 

% 


50 


Lessons    in    Salesmanship 


CHART  FIVE 


THE 
SALESMAN 

(Special  points 
in  his  person- 
ality to  be  im- 
proved) 


Physical 


Vt      li-u  /  Freed 
Health  I  Vigor 


Freedom  from  Disease 


f  Cleanliness 
Appearance  I  Clothing 
(.  Bearing 


Intellectual 


Inspirational  < 


'Knowledge  f  Correct  Speech 
of  English  (  Forceful  Speech 

^General  Education 

'Ambition 
Self-Confidence 
Determination 
Honesty 
Agreeableness 
Courtesy 
Purity 

Truthfulness 
Other  Moral  Qualities 


LESSON  11 
The  Salesman 

We  now  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  third  factor  of 
the  sale — the  salesman  himself. 

The  most  important  factor  connected  with  any  proposition 
is  the  man  behind  it. 

The  argument  that  salesmen  are  born  and  not  made  is 
partly  true  but  mainly  false.  The  element  of  falsity  lies  in 
the  fact  that  those  who  make  the  statement  forget  that  a  strong 
personality  can  be  cultivated. 

This  would  be  a  sorry  world  indeed,  if  the  only  respects 
in  which  one  could  improve  himself  were  those  the  measure 
of  which  may  be  taken  by  the  yard  stick,  the  computing  ma- 
chine and  the  scales.     It  is  illogical  and  unworthy  to  believe 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  51 

that  it  is  possible  to  improve  knowledge  and  impossible  to 
improve  personality.  One  may  broaden  and  deepen  his  inner 
self  just  as  he  may  add  to  his  knowledge  of  facts,  or  to  his 
bank  account. 

Shall  we  say  that  a  man  may  study  his  goods  and  increase 
his  knowledge  of  them,  but  that  it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
increase  his  understanding  of  himself?  Shall  we  say  that  a 
man  can  analyze  his  customer's  state  of  mind  and  learn  to 
understand  it,  but  not  be  able  to  increase  his  own  power  to 
win  the  customer's  mind  over  to  himself  ? 

The  fact  is  that  personality,  like  everything  else  in  the 
world,  is  not  a  vague,  intangible,  indescribable,  undefinable, 
nebulous  and  hazy  attribute  of  man,  but  is  in  truth  a  definite 
and  positive  factor  of  a  man's  being  that  is  capable  of  being 
improved  by  direct  and  practical  methods. 

There  is  no  more  absurd  and  dangerous  opinion  for  the 
student  to  have  than  that  a  good  personality  is  purely  a  "gift" 
in  the  sense  that  it  cannot  be  acquired. 

The  problem  of  the  salesman  is  to  study  his  various  points 
of  personality  in  accordance  with  the  outline  given  in  these 
lessons  (or  in  any  other  good  outline),  and  then  find  out  how 
each  and  every  point  can  be  improved. 

Please  examine  this  lesson  then  with  special  reference  to 
yourself.  Take  up  each  topic  discussed  and  ask  yourself  what 
your  own  condition  is  in  respect  to  the  topic  referred  to  and 
how  you  can  improve  that  condition  by  the  means  named. 
Lord  Bacon  in  his  essay  on  "Study"  suggests  that  frailties  of 
the  mind,  like  diseases  of  the  body,  should  have  appropriate 
exercises.  Is  not  the  study  of  one's  self  an  appropriate  exercise 
for  the  improvement  of  personality  ? 

Let  us  take  the  three  well  recognized  divisions  of  one's 
personal  make-up — the  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral. 

Let  us  first  discuss  the  physical  under  the  subheads: 

L     Health. 

2.     Personal  appearance. 


52  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 


Health 


The  object  to  be  attained  by  the  salesman  in  keeping  him- 
self in  perfect  health  is  not  simply  to  prolong  his  life,  or  to 
keep  himself  out'of  the  hospital.  The  average  men  will  state 
that  he  is  in  good  health  when  he  means  merely  that  he  is  not 
ill,  having  no  malignant  disease.  This  is  the  most  base  view 
one  can  take  of  the  divine  possibilities  of  the  human  body. 
The  most  important  characteristic  of  perfect  health  is  vigor, 
and  vigor  both  of  mind  and  body  is  the  fundamental  require- 
ment of  good  work  in  salesmanship.  A  poor  bookkeeper  may 
stumble  along  from  day  to  day,  slowly,  keeping  his  books 
accurately  and  drawing  his  pay,  without  any  marked  physical 
vigor  behind  him.  The  same  is  true  of  almost  anyone  engaged 
in  routine  employment.  It  is  absolutely  untrue  of  the  sales- 
man. If  he  is  held  down  by  a  lack  of  physical  vigor,  he  will 
probably  be  unable  to  sell  anything  to  anybody. 

Vigor  is  far  more  important  to  him  than  freedom  from 
disease  or  illness.  Many  men  who  have  been  invalids  have 
achieved  great  success  through  vigor  of  mind,  but  no  man  of 
vigorless  mind  has  achieved  triumphant  success  in  salesman- 
ship, or  in  anything  else  except  sleeping. 

The  practical  method  of  securing  freedom  from  disease  is 
so  apparent  that  it  is  only  mentioned  here  because  the  outline 
would  be  otherwise  incomplete. 

1.  Observe  ordinary  sanitary  precautions  with  regard  to 
cleanliness,  air  supply  and  water  supply. 

2.  Take  exercise  and  keep  your  body  in  a  state  of  strength 
in  which  it  is  able  to  resist  the  attacks  of  diseases. 

3.  Make  a  proper  study  of  the  common  diseases  or  ill- 
nesses to  which  people  in  your  community  are  subject  and 
study  special  means  of  avoiding  them,  especially  such  as  you 
may  be  inclined  to  by  heredity. 

A  long  discussion  of  the  above  is  not  in  order  here  because 
it  is  a  medical  topic,  but  every  one  should  understand  these 


Elements    of    Salesmanship  53 

things,  by  making  a  special  study  through  a  reHable,  simple 
text-book  on  the  prevention  of  diseases. 

The  student  should  study  each  one  of  the  common  diseases 
and  learn  how  to  avoid  them,  especially  remembering  that  the 
way  to  wage  war  against  every  disease  is  to  keep  the  body 
in  a  healthy,  strong  condition.  The  articles  and  books  on  these 
topics  by  Dr.  Woods  Hutchison  are  among  the  best  common 
sense  articles  for  the  general  public  to  read  of  any  that  have 
been  written  on  the  subject. 

By  a  curious  and  fortunate  circumstance,  the  attainment 
of  vigor  is  greatly  facilitated  by  the  adoption  of  means  to 
avoid  disease  or  illness.  Let  us  consider  some  of  these  means, 
remembering  that  the  promotion  of  vigor  of  body  is  made 
possible  mainly  by  the  exercise  of  vigor  of  mind  and  that  the 
exercise  of  vigor  of  the  mind  becomes  easy  as  the  vigor  of 
the  body  becomes  greater.  The  rule  for  the  attainment  of 
health  is  much  the  same  as  the  rule  for  the  attainment  of 
wealth — the  hard  thing  is  the  start;  if  a  person  has  secured  a 
good  start  the  remainder  is  fairly  easy. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  here  that  one  of  the  first  rules 
for  the  attainment  of  vigor  and  health  is  that  any  injurious 
habits  must  be  abandoned.  If  one  is  injuring  himself  by  smok- 
ing, or  by  drinking,  or  by  keeping  late  hours,  or  by  the  use  of 
too  much  medicine,  or  by  over-eating,  or  by  any  other  physical 
excess,  the  first  step  in  the  attainment  of  health  is  the  correc- 
tion of  this  habit. 

Vigor  and  health  depend  not  so  much  upon  avoidance  of 
bad  habits  as  upon  the  formation  of  good  ones.  Let  a  man 
see  to  it  that  he  has  an  ample  amount  of  sleep  every  night,  in 
fresh  air  always,  and  let  him  see  to  it  that  he  eats  enough 
good  food,  but  studiously  avoids  over-eating,  and  compels 
himself  to  take  sufficient  exercise  for  physical  well-being.  Great 
good  can  be  accomplished  by  five  minutes'  practice  in  the 
morning  and  evening  at  flexing  the  muscles,  before  a  mirror 
whenever  possible,  and  by  careful  deep  breathing  at  all  times. 


54  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

The  trouble  with  most  people's  health  Is  that  the  digestive 
organs  are  too  full  and  the  lungs  too  empty.  Reverse  these 
conditions. 

The  attainment  of  vigor  is  much  more  a  matter  of  the 
mind  than  the  avoidance  of  disease,  because  vigor  is  largely 
a  state  of  mind.  In  the  question  of  health  a  man  is  frequently 
what  he  thinks  he  is,  and  what  he  wants  to  be.  There  are 
many  people  who  want  to  be  ill.  They  wish  to  engage  in 
conversations  that  will  permit  them  to  comment  upon  their 
own  ill  health.  A  neurasthenic  of  this  kind  will  expect  sym- 
pathy-and  be  actually  insulted  if  some  friend  remarks  that  he 
is  looking  well.  There  is  probably  not  a  reader  of  this  sentence 
who  has  not  seen  people  of  the  same  sort.  Of  course,  any 
germ  disease  will  attack  a  person  no  matter  what  his  state  of 
mind  and  body,  but  a  strong  mind  will  enable  him  to  throw 
off  many  illnesses. 

The  student  should  pursue  this  subject  further  on  his  own 
account  in  some  book,  on  physical  culture.  The  Physical  Cul- 
ture Magazine  offers  many  helpful  suggestions,  as  it  is  edited 
by  a  man  of  common  sense. 

The  attainment  of  strength  is  usually  secured  simply  by 
the  exercise  of  the  general  rules  of  health,  on  account  of  the 
fact  that  nature  provides  certain  forms  of  exercise  and  re- 
freshment that  help  one  automatically.  You  cannot  take  a 
walk,  for  instance,  without  bringing  into  play  most  of  the 
muscles  of  the  body  that  need  exercise ;  and  walking  is  said 
to  be  the  most  thorough  and  complete  exercise  there  is. 

It  is  possible  to  improve  the  vigor  and  health  of  every 
part  of  the  body  by  careful  attention.  Study  the  different 
parts  of  the  body  one  by  one  and  see  what  special  exercises 
can  help  them. 

Here  again  it  is  unnecessary  to  be  a  physician  or  a  physi- 
ologist in  order  to  get  the  benefit  of  a  common  sense  course 
of  physical  training.  You  do  not  have  to  know  the  name  of 
a  muscle  in  order  to  give  it  the  proper  exercise.    At  the  same 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  55 

time  it  is  a  little  more  interesting  and  pleasant  to  exercise  when 
you  do  know  the  names  and  locations  of  the  various  muscles  of 
the  body. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 

You  are  salesman  for  a  patent  window  ventilator.  Your 
customer  is  Mr.  Taylor,  a  hardware  dealer.  In  talking  to  him 
refer  to  the  importance  of  your  ventilator  to  the  health  of  the 
user. 


LESSON  12 
The  Salesman  —  Continued 

Personal  Appearance 

The  other  division  of  the  physical  side  of  the  salesman's 
personality  comes  under  the  topic  Personal  Appearance.  Per- 
sonal appearance  depends  upon  three  things :  cleanliness,  cloth- 
ing, and  bearing.  There  are  some  buyers  who  do  not  insist 
upon  a  salesman  being  clean,  but  the  percentage  of  those  who 
are  irretrievably  set  against  a  dirty  or  an  untidy  salesman,  is 
large  enough  to  make  this  an  important  consideration.  Finger- 
nails, hair,  neck,  and  above  all,  teeth  should  be  as  clean  as  they 
can  be  made. 

The  peculiarity  of  this  terrible  disease  of  dirtiness  is  that 
the  aflflicted  person  has  no  desire  to  reform. 

Let  him  have  slouchy  clothes  and  you  can  frequently  talk 
him  into  dressing  more  neatly.  Let  him  have  humped-over 
shoulders  and  a  woe-begone  expression,  and  you  can  often 
convince  him  of  the  value  of  a  smile  and  an  erect  bearing. 
But  let  him  be  dirty,  and  it  is  not  wise  to  advise  him  on  this 
subject  unless  you  are  a  bigger  man  than  he  is. 

% 


56  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

Dirtiness  is  a  peculiar  thing,  and  more  peculiar  than  we 
ordinarily  think,  because  of  the  fact  that  customers  will  not 
explain  their  aversion  to  dirty  salesmen  and  will  simply  refuse 
to  buy  of  them  without  stating  the  trouble,  such  is  the  in- 
dignation with  which  most  dirty  people  accept  any  suggestion 
or  counsel  on  this  topic. 

The  second  matter  is  clothing.  Unless  you  are  a  salesman 
of  extreme  styles,  always  avoid  extreme  clothing  styles.  There 
are  many  salesmen  whose  natural  bearing  is  such  that  they 
can  wear  the  most  novel  cut  of  clothing  attractively ;  but  ordi- 
narily it  is  wise  to  avoid  both  extremes  in  clothing;  wear 
neither  jewelry  nor  rags.  Don't  be  better  dressed  or  worse 
dressed  than  the  majority  of  your  trade.  Many  salesmen  adopt 
the  principle  frequently  employed  by  public  speakers,  of  hav- 
ing no  jewelry  or  other  ornament  upon  the  person  to  attract 
the  attention  of  the  observer.  The  habit  of  toying  with  the 
spectacles  or  watch  fob  has  spoiled  many  a  sale.  You  would 
not  expect  a  man  running  a  foot-race  to  be  taking  a  pair  of 
nose-pinchers  on  and  off  his  nose  and  whirling  them  around 
on  his  finger  while  he  is  running.  If  a  salesman  would  con- 
sider that  it  is  just  as  important  to  make  his  sale  as  to  win  a 
race,  and  requires  the  same  concentration,  many  of  these  habits 
of  a  nervous  and  distracting  sort  would  be  replaced  by  con- 
vincing and  forceful  habits  of  speech. 

Then,  being  clean  and  well  clad,  see  that  your  attitude  is 
erect  and  your  expression  pleasant.  Smile,  don't  grin.  Be 
pleasant,  not  effusive.  Be  vigorous,  not  offensive.  Remember 
that  the  reflex  action  of  the  smile  is  great.  Not  only  does  it 
create  a  pleasant  impression  on  the  mind  of  your  customer, 
but  it  is  quite  likely  to  bring  pleasant  thoughts  to  the  mind  of 
the  wearer  of  the  smile. 

Let  the  salesman  approach  his  customer  with  vigor  radiat- 
ing from  him,  and  let  his  personal  appearance  be  attractive. 

So  much  for  the  physical.  Now  let  us  consider  the  purely 
intellectual. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  57 

Correct  and  Forceful  Speech 

Every  salesman  should  cultivate  his  knowledge  of  the 
English  language.  It  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  all  studies 
to  him.  The  study  of  this  language  must  teach  him  two  things, 
first,  the  ability  to  talk  correctly;  second,  the  ability  to  talk 
effectively.  It  is  not  necessary  to  produce  any  argument  in 
favor  of  the  above.  The  salesman  who  is  not  making  it  a  point 
to  read  the  best  books  written,  is  failing  to  educate  himself 
in  a  way  that  is  most  vital  to  his  success.  Other  common 
school  studies  should  be  mastered,  at  least  to  a  reasonable 
degree  of  proficiency,  for  the  sake  of  general  development  of 
the  mind ;  but  the  power  of  speech  is  all  important. 

The  salesman  should  seek  to  cultivate  his  mind-power  regu- 
larly by  study  as  he  begins  his  life  work,  remembering  that 
he  only  advances  who  studies  constantly.  The  value  of  no 
study  is  lost  to  the  salesman,  especially  the  study  of  great 
books. 

The  salesman  should  train  himself,  or  seek  special  train- 
ing elsewhere,  in  the  art  of  talking  effectively. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  important  attributes  of  the  sales- 
man. It  involves  both  a  study  of  arguments  and  a  training  of 
the  voice.  The  former  is  what  these  courses  are  designed  to 
give  to  the  student.  The  latter  is  something  that  he  must 
learn  for  himself,  unless  better  instruction  is  available. 

When  a  man  tells  you  that  the  cultivation  of  the  powers 
of  the  voice  is  not  distinctly  necessary  on  the  part  of  the 
salesman,  because  salesmen  succeed  who  do  not  do  this,  he 
forgets  that  the  salesmen  to  whom  he  refers  are  men  who  win 
in  spite  of  their  faults  and  not  on  account  of  them.  Fifteen 
minutes  spent  every  evening  for  six  months  in  the  cultivation 
of  a  good,  smooth,  even  and  forceful  tone  of  voice  is  a  splen- 
did investment ;  and  certainly  if  there  is  any  business  on  earth 
where  the  human  voice  is  valuable,  it  is  the  business  of  sales- 
manship. Your  voice  is  likely  to  make  you  friends  or  enemies 
without  you  knowing  it.     No  man  can  afford  to  use  anything 


58  .  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

but  a  pleasant,  smooth,  business-like  voice,  and  if  this  is  true, 
then  it  must  also  be  true  that  no  man  can  afford  to  let  his 
voice  go  uncultivated  if  he  can  improve  it  ever  so  slightly  by 
practice. 

You  do  not  need  the  services  of  a  vocal  teacher,  or  an 
elocutionist.  You  need  your  own  ears  and  a  silent  room. 
You  need  to  regulate  the  tone  quality  of  'your  voice.  For 
instance,  speak  to  yourself  now  as  you  read  this,  in  a  high, 
rasping  tone  of  voice.  See  how  that  sounds.  Finally,  after 
you  have  experimented  with  objectionable  tones  of  voice,  which 
you  will  not  use  in  your  work,  try  to  produce  a  smooth,  even 
tone,  such  as  one  should  always  employ;  and  remember  that 
this  is  part  of  the  business  of  the  salesman. 

Your  voice  must  not  sound  like  the  voice  of  one  who  has 
gone  asleep,  neither  must  it  sound  like  the  voice  of  one  who 
is  nervous  and  excited.  Is  it  not  possible  that  your  voice  has 
a  trace  of  these  deficiencies  in  it? 

It  is  possible  that  you  have  a  deficiency  of  speech,  such  as 
lisping  or  stuttering.  It  has  been  scientifically  demonstrated 
that  these  faults  can  be  cured  through  proper  practice. 

Here,  once  more,  you  must  be  warned  against  the  man 
who  tries  to  make  you  believe  that  these  are  qualities  with 
which  a  man  is  born  and  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  es- 
cape from  the  objectionable  ones.  Think  again  about  what 
was  suggested  a  few  lessons  previous,  that  the  man  who 
has  attractive  qualities  has  them  because  of  effort  put  forth 
by  himself,  as  well  as  by  his  parents.  It  is  said  of  the 
great  French  orator,  Mirabeau,  that  his  face  had  been  marked 
by  small-pox,  and  was  repulsive  beyond  description,  but  nature 
had  been  so  changed  by  the  inner  fire  that  the  most  beautiful 
women  of  France  were  enraptured  by  the  vigor  of  his  expres- 
sion, the  illumination  of  his  eyes,  and  the  wonderful  force  of 
his  manner,  qualities  cultivated  by  him  though  he  was  handi- 
capped by  a  terrible  disfigurement. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  general  education  along  all 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  59 

liberal  and  practical  lines  is  as  valuable  to  the  salesman  as  to 
any  other  person.  It  broadens  the  mind,  exercises  the  imagina- 
tion, and  cultivates  an  interesting  and  attractive  personality.  A 
vain  display  of  general  educational  attainments  is  to  be  avoided, 
but  the  incidental  power  these  bring  is  of  great  value. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 

You  are  selling  a'  book  entitled  "Common  Mistakes  of 
Speech  Corrected."  Your  customer  is  Mr.  Rice,  principal  of  a 
school.    Refer,  in  your  talk,  to  the  value  of  correct  language. 


LESSON  13 
The  Salesman  —  Continued 

Inspirational  Qualities 

The  preceding  lesson  has  referred  more  to  the  machinery 
of  the  mind,  and  not  to  the  spirit  or  soul  behind  it  that  moves  it 
to  endeavor,  and  inspires  it  to  succeed.  It  is  true  that  certain 
things  must  be  studied  just  as  it  is  true  that  certain  things 
must  be  done  to  cultivate  the  body,  but  beyond  both  of  these 
things  there  lies  the  cultivation  of  that  inclination  toward 
motion,  activity  and  enthusiasm  that  we  refer  to  as  "spirit." 
In  other  words,  there  are  two  divisions  of  intellectual  power. 
(1)  The  purely  technical,  (2)  the  inspirational. 

Fundamentally,  the  salesman's  success,  like  that  of  every 
other  man,  depends  upon  the  quality  of  his  "spirit."  Those 
who  do  not  think  deeply,  say,  "I  know  it  is  true  that  you  can 
cultivate  the  body  and  the  machinery  of  the  mind,  but  the 
quality  of' a  man's  'spirit'  is  a  natural  gift." 

These  persons  are  in  error.  It  is  just  as  possible  for  a 
man  to  cultivate  spirit  and  ginger  as  to  increase  his  powers 


60  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

along  physical  and  intellectual  lines.  To  test  the  truth  of  this 
statement,  consider  the  most  important  of  the  qualities  just 
referred  to,  and  how  they  can  be  cultivated. 

Ambition.  The  desire  to  win  is  stronger  in  some  people 
than  in  others,  but  can  be  cultivated  by  all.  There  is  no  basis 
for  the  popular  idea  that  ambition  is  unattainable  unless  born 
in  a  man. 

The  average  person  becomes  ambitious  through  the  fact 
that  in  his  childhood  wise  parents  and*  teachers  read  to  him 
stories  that  point  him  to  success  and  achievement.  Through- 
out life,  he  is  constantly  educated  by  his  school  book,  by  the 
daily  newspaper,  by  the  preacher,  by  everyone  with  whom  he 
comes  in  contact,  to  the  belief  that  he  can  attain  greater  things. 
The  very  fact  that  certain  men  around  him  have  attained  suc- 
cess is  itself  a  part  of  this  education. 

Writers,  newspaper  men,  preachers,  parents,  teachers,  all 
find  that  their  labors  in  instilling  ambition  meet  with  success 
for  the  reason  that  as  soon  as  they  succeed  m  getting  one 
hundred  people  to  try  and  try  hard,  they  have  from  ninety-five 
to  one  hundred  who  will  succeed;  these  will  buy  more  books, 
buy  more  newspapers,  pay  more  preachers,  pay  more  teachers ; 
and  the  more  they  pay  these  great  inspirers,  the  more  they 
will  be  inspired;  and  so  the  whole  cycle  of  improvement  goes 
on,  because  Truth  is  on  the  side  of  the  man  who  says,  *Tf  I 
try,  I  can  win." 

It  follows  very  closely  and  very  logically  that  if  a  man  can 
be  inspired  by  the  teachings  of  others,  he  can  in  a  similar 
way  inspire  himself.  Let  the  man  who  feels  that  his  desire  to 
win  and  struggle  and  fight  is  not  strong  enough,  go  to  the 
library  in  his  town  and  look  up  books  of  inspiration,  biog- 
raphies of  successful  men,  whether  in  his  own  line  of  business 
or  not.  The  principle  is  exactly  the  same  as  explained  in  the 
preceding  paragraph.  Just  as  a  teacher  can  inspire  him  by 
pointing  out  these  truths,  so  can  he  inspire  himself  by  reading 
about  them.     Did  you  ever  look  at  it  in  this  light  before?    If 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  61 

you  will  secure  Mr.  Crewdson's  book  "Tales  of  the  Road,"  or 
Mr.  Moody's  book,  "Men  Who  Sell  Things,"  you  will  find 
them  full  of  stories  of  success.  Suppose  added  to  this  you 
study  the  biographies  of  famous  salesmen  like  Andrew  Car- 
negie or  hundreds  of  others  whose  names  and  histories  will 
be  found  in  Mr.  Sheldon's  magazine,  "The  Business  Philoso- 
pher," which  is  devoted  to  salesmen  more  exclusively  than  any 
other  magazine  in  this  country.  Your  ambition  will  be  aroused. 

If  then,  it  is  possible  for  you  to  cultivate  ambition  by  read- 
ing of  the  experiences  of  others,  it  is  also  possible  for  you 
to  take  the  next  step  and  cultivate  it  by  planning  for  your  own 
future.  Suppose  you  spend  a  period  of  time  every  day  in- 
thought,  contemplating  the  possibilities  of  your  own  success. 
Do  you  not  believe  that  you  can  cultivate  ambition  ?  Of  course, 
if  you  figure  too  high,  you  may  over-shoot  the  mark,  fail  and 
be  disappointed.  You  must  guard  against  this  disappointment 
by  trying  again. 

Ambition,  like  everything  else  in  the  world  that  is  worth 
having,  can  be  secured  by  effort.  Sufficient  time  and  labor 
spent  in  securing  the  object  of  one's  desire  will  make  that 
desire  a  thousand  times  stronger  than  at  the  first. 

Self -Confidence.  This  quality  is  next  in  logical  order 
to  ambition  as  a  great  spiritual  quality  pointing  toward  suc- 
cessful salesmanship.  Reference  is  not  made  here  to  conceit 
or  egotism  which  leads  men  to  undertake  tasks  without  neces- 
sary preparation,  but  to  that  stalwart  faculty  of  mind  whereby 
a  man  knows  that  he.  will  succeed  because  he  knows  that  he 
understands  his  subject,  that  he  is  willing  to  put  into  his  work 
the  necessary  amount  of  effort.  Self-confidence  in  a  young 
salesman  who  has  not  as  yet  tried  his  spurs,  must  be  based 
on  hopefulness  and  willingness  to  try.  These  two  qualities  can 
scarcely  fail  when  backed  by  a  reasonable  amount  of  intelli- 
gence and  an  unusual  amount  of  determination. 

The  man  who  expects  to  win  has  ten  chances  for  success 
to  one  that  he  would  have  otherwise.    A  salesman  can  hardly 


62  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

do  anything  more  harmful  to  himself  than  to  adopt  the  atti- 
tude of  one  who  might  say,  *'I  don't  think  I  shall  sell  you  this, 
but  I  am  going  ahead' with  this  miserable  selling  talk  because 
I  have  been  paid  to  do  it.    Stop  me  if  you  want  to,  and  I'll  go." 

The  test  of  a  salesman's  self-reliance  frequently  comes 
when  he  is  required  to  face  the  question  of  whether  he  wants 
to  work  on  salary  or  commission.  Among  incompetent  sales- 
men, who  have  no  confidence  in  their  propositions,  or  in  them- 
selves, the  salesman  is  constantly  on  the  lookout  for  guaran- 
teed salary,  and  his  house  is  struggling  to  get  him  to  work  on 
commission.  But  among  the  better  class  of  salesmen,  the 
.problem  is  exactly  the  reverse.  The  salesman  prefers  the  com- 
mission plan  and  the  house  often  endeavors  to  limit  him  to  a 
salary. 

The  reason  that  the  commission  plan  should  be  preferred 
by  anyone,  is  evident  after  a  very  little  careful  thought.  If  a 
salesman  gets  a  position  on  a  salary,  he  cannot  keep  it  any 
longer  than  he  is  able  to  earn  it,  and  in  case  of  unusual  success, 
he  cannot  reap  the  benefit  in  an  increase  of  pay.  If  he  works 
under  the  commission  system,  however,  he  can  get  pay  for 
all  the  work  he  does.  The  trouble  with  incompetent  people, 
however,  is  that  they  imagine  they  can  fool  their  employers 
into  thinking  there  is  some  good  reason  why  they  should  be 
retained  when  they  are  not  getting  business,  and  that  their 
employers  will  retain  them — a  most  absurd  and  impossible  state 
of  affairs. 

The  best  way  to  cultivate  self-confidence  is  to  put  yourself 
in  a  position  where  you  will  have  to  rely  upon  yourself.  Self- 
confidence  is  perhaps  as  hard  a  quality  to  cultivate  as  any, 
because  if  it  is  not  foolhardiness,  it  must  be  based  upon  a 
certain  knowledge  of  ability  and  strength,  and  even  though  one 
has  this  ability  and  strength,  he  is  not. likely  to  find  it  out 
positively  until  after  it  has  been  tried  many  times.  And  yet, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  this  quality  is  often  best  developed 
by  rebuffs  and  failures.    Many  of  the  strongest  men  we  have, 


Elements    of    Salesmanship  63 

are  men  who  have  met  with  discouragements  and  measured 
themselves  against  adversities  until  their  grasp  of  a  difficulty 
is  accurate  and  their  strength  to  meet  it  is  fully  adequate, 
purely  through  the  effect  of  experience. 

The  next  quality  is  expressed  by  the  words — determination, 
patience,  persistence,  preseverance,  and  endurance.  It  is  the 
quality  that  must  come  to  the  aid  of  ambition  and  self-con- 
fidence if  actual  results  are  to  be  obtained,  for  it  makes  ambi- 
tion effective  and  self-confidence  useful. 

Just  as  you  can  cultivate  ambition  by  studying  the  suc- 
cesses of  others  and  self-confidence  by  welcoming  hard  tasks, 
so  you  can  cultivate  this  quality. 

There  is  no  better  way  to  cultivate  patience  and  perse- 
verance in  work  than  to  fix  the  eyes  upon  the  future.  At  the 
time  it  is  being  performed,  work  seldom  seems  to  pay  for 
itself  in  the  doing.  He  is  indeed  a  lucky  person  who  has  so 
found  his  work  that  he  enjoys  every  minute  of  it  more  than 
he  would  enjoy  relaxation  or  amusement.  It  is  poetic  and 
delightful  to  think  of  work  as  being  more  pleasant  than 
amusement  is,  but  we  know  as  a  matter  of  cold,  solid  fact 
that  to  the  majority  of  people  it  is  not. 

It  is  the  warm,  fighting  persistence  of  a  man  that  makes 
him  stick  to  his  work  at  times  when  others  have  deserted,  or 
at  times  when  discouragements  are  heavy  upon  him,  but  the 
man  who  fixes  his  eyes  on  a  point  ten,  fifteen,  or  thirty  years 
ahead  can  thereby  cultivate  a  brand  of  patience  and  endurance 
that  will  fit  him  for  the  struggle — not  the  sort  of  patience 
that  will  free  his  mind  from  any  worry  or  ambition  or  desire 
connected  with  the  future,  but  the  kind  of  patience  and  en- 
durance that  persuades  him  to  hold  on  because  he  can  see  the 
goal  ahead. 

There  are  other  "ginger  qualities"  that  need  not  be  con- 
sidered here,  as  the  rules  for  their  attainment  are  practically 
the  same  as  the  above. 


64  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

Moral  Qualities 

It  must  be  very  distinctly  understood  that  when  we  speak 
of  the  moral  side  of  a  man's  nature  we  are  not  referring  even 
indirectly  to  any  particiilar  religious  belief,  but  simply  to  a 
man's  attitude  toward  the  great  moral  questions  of  honesty, 
faithfulness,  cheerfulness,  and  the  like,  and  their  direct  bearing 
upon  the  success  of  the  salesman's  work. 

Honesty.  Certainly  the  man  who  said,  "Honesty  is  the 
best  policy,"  spoke  a  great  truth.  The  reason  that  one  who 
is  honest  is  likely  to  be  successful  is  not  simply  that  others 
come  to  find  out  in  time  that  he  is  dependable,  and  that  there- 
fore it  will  pay  them  to  trade  with  him.  It  is  true  that  they 
do  find  out  this,  and  that  the  cultivation  of  a  strong  moral 
character  does  bear  fruit  indirectly  in  this  way;  but  it  bears 
fruit  in  a  far  more  direct  way — its  influence  On  the  life  and 
character  ot  the  salesman  himself.  It  gives  him  the  right  to 
feel  that  whatever  progress  he  is  making  and  whatever  success 
he  has,  is  founded  upon  solid  rock.  He  is  not  pursued  by  the 
thought  that  he  is  injuring  those  with  whom  he  deals.  He  is 
not  harrassed  by  the  idea  that  he  is  doing  anything  for  his 
customers  less  than  the  very  best  he  knows  how.  What  could 
possibly  make  a  man  stronger  than  such  a  feeling  as  this? 
How  can  a  salesman  expect  to  go  through  life  perpetually 
acting  a  part,  pretending  to  be  the  friend  of  his  customers 
while  he  knows  that  he  is  not,  and  that  when  the  customer 
finds  out  the  facts,  he  will  never  buy  of  him  again?  Such  a 
salesman  must  hunt  up  new  purchasers  every  trip.  He  knows 
that  he  can  only  do  business  with  the  weakest  and  least  intel- 
ligent of  men — men  whom  he  can  deceive.  Is  it  not  many 
times  better  to  start  into  the  salesmanship  business  recognizing 
the  truth  of  the  principle  laid  down  in  the  first  lesson  that  a 
fair  bargain  must  benefit  both  parties?  Is  it  not  easy  to  see 
that  the  salesman  who  recognizes  this  principle  at  the  very 
start  will  attain  a  success  that  he  could  not  otherwise  attain? 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  65 

This  does  not  mean  that  immoral  men  do  not  often  succeed, 
nor  that  there  are  no  morally  upright  men  who  fail.  But  the 
chances  are  nearly  one  hundred  to  one  that  the  salesman  can 
only  attain  the  highest  success  in  his  business  by  working 
along  lines  that  have  the  constant  approval  of  his  inner  self. 

Can  a  leopard  change  his  spots?  Can  a  man  cultivate 
honesty  ? 

There  are  many  who  believe  that  a  man  can  not  cultivate 
honesty  as  a  merely  intellectual  process,  many  who  believe 
that  a  man  is  either  honest  or  dishonest  by  nature  and  that 
the  only  method  for  a  dishonest  man  to  become  honest  is  a 
sudden  conversion  of  some  sort.     How  absurd  this  is. 

We  all  read  and  believe  that  a  man's  fall  from  a  position 
of  honesty  to  that  of  dishonesty  is  gradual.  We  hear  stories 
of  men  finally  landed  in  the  penitentiary  who  began  by  slight 
deviations  from  the  path  of  honor,  whose  consciences  became 
gradually  less  and  less  tender,  and  who  eventually  sank  to  the 
bottom,  overwhelmed  by  a  desire  to  cheat,  lie,  and  steal  that 
was  irresistible. 

If  this  is  true,  is  it  illogical  to  believe  that  a  man  can 
advance  upward  by  the  same  gradual  steps  that  marked  his 
downfall  ? 

If  a  man  feels  himself  lacking  in  the  quality  of  honesty, 
he  can  correct  it  by  careful,  earnest  thought  when  questions 
arise,  in  which  he  assumes  himself  for  the  time  to  be  the 
other  person,  providing  he  agrees  with  himself  that  he  will 
always  act  upon  the  decision  that  he  would  come  to  in  the 
matter  if  he  were  the  other  person.  It  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive how  a  man  can  contemplate  the  hardship  brought  into 
thousands  of  lives  by  his  robbery  of  a  bank,'  and  yet  proceed 
with  the  operation.  Men  are  dishonest  because  they  do  not 
try  to  cultivate  honesty  in  a  positive  and  definite  way  as  sug- 
gested above. 

Agreeableness.  "Never  become  angry"  is  the  first  rule 
of  prudence  for  the  salesman.     Its  advantages  are  twofold. 


66  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

1.  The  salesman  loses  a  customer  when  he  loses  his  head, 
whether  he  is  right  or  wrong. 

2.  The  salesman  limits  his  own  ability  to  think  and  act 
cleverly  or  intelligently  when  he  becomes  angry.  Angry  men 
can't  think  clearly;  and  clear  thinking  is  the  salesman's  stock 
in  trade. 

Many  other  moral  qualities  must  be  considered  by  the  sales- 
man.   For  instance, 

Courtesy, 

Purity  of  Action  and  Speech, 

Truth   (a  form  of  honesty),  etc., 

All  of  these  cannot  receive  special  consideration  here.  The 
salesman  is  urged  to  reflect  upon  their  importance  in  all  busi- 
ness affairs,  however,  and  to  strive  earnestly  to  cultivate  them. 

As  a  concluding  thought  along  this  line  of  cultivation  of 
personality,  please  consider  the  following  suggestion.  Many 
of  our  greatest  men  have  come  from  surroundings  not  at  all 
conducive  to  the  cultivation  of  such  character  and  accomplish 
ments  as  they  attained  in  later  life.  These  men  did  not  leap 
at  once  from  positions  of  unattractive  obscurity  to  great  fame 
and  fortune.  It  takes  years  of  struggle  for  such  things  to  be 
accomplished.  If  any  of  you  have  joined  this  salesmanship 
course  with  the  idea  that  at  the  conclusion  of  your  course,  no 
matter  how  clownish  or  rough  or  uncultured  you  have  been  at 
your  beginning,  you  would  be  polished  gentlemen  and  ladies 
ready  to  transact  business  with  the  biggest  men  in  the  land, 
you  are  doomed  to  disappointment.  Books  will  never  teach 
the  world  and  lectures  will  never  make  much  change  in  human 
lives.  It  is  the  task  of  this  course  merely  to  point  out  to  you 
the  paths  along  which  your  personality  can  be  properly  culti- 
vated, and  especially  to  suggest  points  in  which  your  selling 
ability  can  be  improved.  The  rest  lies  entirely  with  you,  and 
not  so  much  in  the  next  six  weeks  as  in  the  next  six  years. 
The  cultivation  of  an  attractive  and  winning  personality  is  a 
matter  of  many,  many  years,  but  if  you  heed  the  instructions 


Elements   of    Salesmanship 


67 


given  in  this  course,  and  if  you  then  keep  your  eyes  open  to 
observe  what  people  Hke  in  you  and  how  they  Hke  to  have 
you  meet  them,  you  cannot  fail  in  the  process  of  years  to 
develop  yourself  into  a  strong  and  efhcient  salesman. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 

You  are  selling  "The  Bookkeeper,"  a  magazine  that  makes 
a  specialty  of  the  biographies  of  successful  business  men. 
Your  custorner  is  a  young  man  named  Middleton.  In  what 
you  say,  refer  to  the  inspiration  and  help  everyone  gets  from 
reading  about  the  lives  of  successful  men. 


SELECTING 
PROSPECTS 


CHART  SIX 

'  I.     Your  Former  Customers 

2.  Dun  and  Bradstreet  Reports 

3.  City,  State  and  Rural  Directories 

4.  Trade  Lists 

5.  Church  School,  and  Club  Membership 
Lists 

6.  Subscription  Lists 

7.  Lists  Compiled  by  Other  Merchants 

8.  Lists  Sent  in  Answer  to  Advertise- 
ments, ETC. 

^9.     Lists  Secured  by  Correspondence 


68  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

LESSON  14 
Selecting  Prospects 

There  are  some  salesmen  who  are  not  obliged  to  select 
their  prospects,  but  are  given  a  list  of  those  whom  they  must 
visit,  and  are  expected  to  see  no  one  else.  This  class  of  sales- 
men is  comparatively  small.  Most  salesmen  must  always  be 
on  the  alert  for  new  customers,  and  many  salesmen  are  re- 
quired to  look  after  this  matter  with  very  little  assistance  from 
the  house. 

The  following  lists  will  be  found  of  value.  As  many  of 
these  suggestions  should  be  used  as  the  special  case  demands. 

L     Your  Former  Customers. 

This  is  the  most  valuable  list  you  can  possibly  have.  A 
salesman  can  make  no  greater  mistaken  than  to  ignore,  forget, 
or  mistreat  a  former  customer.  Names  of  all  your  former 
customers  should  make  up  the  backbone  of  your  entire  list. 

2.  Dun  and  Bradstreet  Reports. 

The  commercial  agencies  of  R.  G.  Dun  &  Co.  and  the 
Bradstreet  Co.  and  other  commercial  agencies  of  the  United 
States  furnish  customers  not  only  with  ratings  of  business, 
but  with  lists  of  names  that  are  valuable.  The  names  in  Dun 
and  Bradstreet  are  those  of  large  and  responsible  firms.  For 
many  salesmen  these  lists  will  not  be  complete  enough,  but 
others  will  find  that  they  contain  nearly  all  the  names  that  are 
desired. 

3.  City,  State  and  Rural  Directories. 

These  need  no  explanation.  Where  obtainable,  directories 
will  always  be  found  valuable  to  salesmen  who  wish  to  cover 
the  ground  thoroughly  and  omit  no  one. 

4.  Trade  Lists. 

Trade  lists  are  numerous  in  kind,  and  of  different  grades 
of  value.  There  is  the  special  list  from  an  authoritative  source. 
In  this  class  come  lists  of  members  of  societies,  local  associa- 


Elements   of   Salesmanship  69 

tions,  etc.  They  do  not  necessarily  include  all  of  the  enter- 
prising merchants  of  the  district  represented,  but  are  likely  to 
include  most  of  them.  Enterprising  merchants  usually  belong 
to  such  associations.  There  are  also  general  trade  lists  pub- 
lished. Their  reliability  will  depend  upon  the  reliability  of 
the  publisher.  Many  such  publishers  are  absolutely  reliable, 
as  in  the  case  of  Dun  and  Bradstreet  mentioned  above.  But 
there  are  others  who  sell  names  by  the  thousands,  making 
strong  claims  for  the  correctness  of  the  lists,  when  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  lists  are  very  inaccurate  and  unreliable.  The  third 
class  consists  of  merchants'  local  lists.  When  such  lists 
are  honestly  published  by  merchants  who  have  the  good  of 
their  city  at  heart  and  are  not  attempting  to  boycott  other 
merchants,  they  can  sometimes  be  depended  upon.  Often, 
however,  merchants'  "Black  Lists"  are  published  by  prejudiced 
and  evil-mJnded  persons,  and  are  not  reliable. 

5.  Church,  School,  and  Club  Membership  Lists. 
These  lists  are  extremely  valuable  to  salesmen  who  have 

articles  for  sale  that  appeal  to  any  one  of  the  classes  of  people 
listed  in  them. 

6.  Subscription  Lists  of  Magazines  and  Newspapers. 
It  is  generally  difficult  if  not  impossible  to  secure  these  lists 

on  account  of  the  fact  that  the  publisher  fears  that  the  list 
may  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  competitor  and  be  used  to  his 
damage.     However,  they  are  sometimes  obtainable. 

7.  Lists  Compiled  by  Other  Merchants. 

Frequently  a  merchant  will  get  up  a  list  of  his  own  custom- 
ers, and  sell  this  list  to  other  merchants  who  are  not  com- 
petitors. 

8.  Lists  Sent  in  Answer  to  Premium  Offers,  Cou- 
pons, OR  other  Requests. 

This  sort  of  list  is  one  of  the  most  frequently  found  of  all. 
A  dealer  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  enterprising  retailer  of 
his  article  will  read  the  magazine  in  which  he  will  see  it  adver- 
tised.   He  then  makes  it  a  point  to  prepare  an  advertisement  so 


70  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

attractive  that  it  is  sure  to  draw  the  attention  of  those  who 
would  be  interested,  and  either  through  a  premium  offer  or  a 
coupon  he  secures  possession  of  their  names  and  addresses. 

9.     Lists  Secured  by  Correspondence. 

It  is  best  to  secure  a  Hst  by  direct  correspondence  when  pos- 
sible, but  of  course  you  must  have  in  advance  a  list  of  the  peo- 
ple to  whom  you  may  write  in  order  to  determine  whether  or  not 
they  are  interested.  There  are  two  classes  of  names  to  be  se- 
cured by  correspondence,  namely,  those  who  write  to  you  first, 
thus  showing  an  interest  in  your  proposition,  and  those  to 
whom  you  write  first.  It  is  taken  for  granted,  of  course,  that 
most  salesmen  will  give  very  careful  attention  to  any  customer 
whose  name  is  secured  in  this  direct  manner. 

Planning  Visits 

Having  now  secured  your  list  of  customers  you  are  ready 
to  plan  your  visits.  This  should  be  done  with  great  care. 
The  salesman  should  not  rely  upon  memory  except  in  very 
unusual  cases.  A  list  of  customers  should  be  kept  in  a  pocket 
card  file  or  a  note  book,  and  in  some  cases  a  map  of  a  town, 
with  a  "plan  of  march"  carefully  outlined,  will  be  found  ex- 
tremely valuable.  A  salesman  with  twenty  or  thirty  customers 
to  call  on,  can  waste  a  great  deal  of  time  by  not  following  a 
systematic  plan  in  calling  on  his  customers. 

The  commercial  salesman  with  a  select  trade  experiences 
no  great  difficulty  in  planning  his  visits  in  a  certain  town.  He 
experiences  a  greater  difficulty,  however,  in  arranging  the  order 
in  which  he  will  visit  the  towns  on  his  list.  Economy  of  time  in 
calling  upon  his  customers  in  any  town  can  be  provided  for  by 
simply  looking  over  the  list  of  his  customers,  preferably  in  the 
evening  when  he  has  plenty  of  time,  so  that  he  can  mentally 
determine  the  order  in  which  he  will  visit  them.  Sometimes 
the  list  of  customers  is  so  small  that  even  this  is  not  necessary. 
:,    With  the  canvasser,  however,  the  planning  of  visits  is  a 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  71 

very  important  question.  The  canvasser  can  make  no  more 
serious  mistake  than  that  of  caUing  upon  his  customers  in  a 
haphazard  order,  and  perhaps  skipping  a  large  number  of  them 
altogether.  If  a  canvasser  is  honest  and  has  a  good  proposition, 
(and,  of  course,  no  other  sort  of  person  should  be  taking  a 
course  of  lessons  of  this  kind)  he  will  find  that  one  of  the 
secrets  of  his  success  will  be  in  making  a  thorough  canvass  of 
everybody  in  the  neighborhood.  In  this  way  he  can  secure  a 
strong  local  interest  in  his  goods.  He  can  also  create  a  strong 
local  confidence  in  himself,  especially  in  the  country.  He  can 
really  make  personal  friends  if  his  stay  in  the  community  is- 
long  enough ;  and  this  is  of  great  value.  A  salesman  can  make 
no  more  serious  error  than  to  pick  out  certain  houses  and  cer- 
tain stores  as  most  promising,  and  skip  those  that  do  not  look 
so  promising. 

Where  the  country  roads  or  the  city  streets  are  cut  in  regu- 
lar squares  the  best  plan  in  the  country  is  to  start  at  one  end 
of  the  road  taking  all  houses  on  both  sides  of  the  road,  and  all 
houses  that  are  near  the  road  on  cross  roads.  Travel  in  this 
way  five  or  six  miles  and  then  come  back  on  the  next  road. 
This  is  the  method  that  has  been  found  by  canvassers  to  be 
most  economical  of  distance.  If  you  will  draw  on  your  paper 
a  map  of  a  township  six  miles  square  with  regular  roads,  and 
trace  the  route  as  suggested,  you  will  see  how  one  can  cover  a 
township  thoroughly  in  this  way  with  very  little  "doubling 
on  his  track." 

In  town,  a  very  similar  plan  may  be  employed,  where  the 
streets  are  regular.  Sometimes  the  canvasser  goes  up  one 
side  and  down  another  on  all  the  streets  running  east  and  west. 
But  in  general  it  is  preferable  to  go  up  one  side  of  the  street, 
taking  up  cross  streets  on  that  side,  and  come  straight  back  on 
the  other  side  of  the  street  without  stopping  for  cross  streets. 
Repeat  this  on  the  adjoining  street,  and  then  on  the  third  street, 
etc.,  and  you  will  see  that  the  ground  has  been  covered  com- 
pletely by  an  economical  plan. 


72 


Lessons   in    Salesmanship 


Student's  Exercises  for  this  Lesson 
No.  1 

Select  any  one  of  the  articles  mentioned  in  Lesson  9,  and 
tell  how  you  would  choose  your  customers  were  you  to  go 
into  a  strange  town  of  10,000  people  to  sell  the  goods,  (a)  by 
wholesale;  (b)  by  retail. 

No.  2 

In  Smithville,  the  streets  running  north  and  south  are  let- 
tered from  A  to  M,  and  the  streets  running  east  and  west  are 
numbered  from  First  to  Twelfth,  as  shown  in  the  following 
diagram.  The  house  numbers  begin  at  zero  where  A  Street 
crosses  the  east  and  west  streets,  and  run  east  one  hundred  to 
the  block,  with  the  odd  numbers  on  the  north  side  of  the  street. 
They  begin  at  zero  where  First  Street  crosses  the  north  and 
south  streets  and  run  south  one  hundred  to  the  block,  the  odd 
numbers  being  on  the  east  side  of  the  street. 

N 

^.    ,        ABCDEFGHIJKLM 

First  ■' 

Second 

Third 

Fourth 

Fifth 

Sixth 

Seventh 

Eighth 

Ninth 

Tenth 

Eleventh 

Twelfth 


W 


"I I I I I i I i |i 


Elements   of    Salesmanship 


n 


Prepare  a  route  list  for  the  following  addresses,  starting 
from  your  hotel  corner  Fifth  and  K  Streets,  planning  to  walk 
the  smallest  possible  number  of  blocks  in  your  trip.  First 
place  an  X  on  the  diagram  for  each  house  to  be  visited.  Then 
arrange  your  addresses  in  the  order  in  which  you  would  visit 
them,  and  state  the  number  of  blocks  required. 


1110  Fourth 

110  M  St. 
1085  Second 

53  M  St. 
913  Second  St. 
1040  First 
1093  Third 
80  K  St. 


1150  Second 

844  K  St. 
1115  First 

86  Third 

390  H  St. 

680  K  St. 

670  Fifth 

1130  Eighth 


950  Ninth 
450  Second 
810  Fifth 
109  C  St. 
230  Second 
170  Fifth 
1033  Twelfth 
835  L  St. 


LESSON  15 
The  Normal  Selling  Talk 

If  every  man  were  precisely  like  every  other  man,  the 
question  of  salesmanship  would  be  an  easy  one  because  it 
would  only  be  necessary  to  test  one  man  to  find  out  exactly 
what  kind  of  selling  talk  appeals  to  him,  learn  that  selling  talk, 
and  deliver  it  over  and  over  again. 

Fortunately  for  the  fascinating  interest  of  salesmanship, 
this  is  not  the  situation.  Every  man  varies  from  the  normal 
at  least  a  trifle,  and  your  selling  talk  must  be  revised  to 
suit  him. 

This  suggests  the  most  logical  method  of  studying  the 
selling  talk,  which  is  the  consideration  before  us  now.  Let  us 
construct  a  normal  or  standard  talk  that  must  appeal  to  a  man 
with  no  prejudices  or  peculiarities.  Having  this  normal  selling 
talk,  we  will  see  later  how  it  must  be  modified  for  customers  of 
varying  types. 


74  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

What  does  this  normal  seUing  talk  consist  of? 

1.  A  correct,  accurate  description  of  the  goods  which  are 
exhibited  on  the  spot. 

2.  A  statement  of  the  price  and  terms  of  sale.  -^ 

3.  An  invitation  to  the  customer  to  buy. 

Of  course,  in  the  above  the  question  has  been  stripped  of 
all  side  issues  such  as  the  necessity  for  correct  conduct  and 
conversation,  the  necessity  for  choosing  the  proper  time  to 
present  the  case,  etc.  I  mean  that,  in  the  case  of  a  normal 
customer,  that  is,  a  customer  who  can  handle  the  goods  and 
needs  them,  there  is  nothing  for  the  salesman  to  do  but  the 
above,  since  this  customer  has  no  peculiarities  and  it  is  simply 
necessary  that  he  see  the  goods,  understand  the  proposition, 
and  be  invited  to  buy. 

Such  a  man  would  not  be  influenced  in  his  judgment  by 
anything  the  salesman  might  say  of  an  attractive  or  enticing 
nature.  On  the  other  hand,  he  would  not  be  influenced  against 
the  goods  on  account  of  any  personal  short-comings  of  the 
salesman.  He  would  be  like  a  god  in  his  ability  to  see  the 
exact  truth  about  those  goods.  Perhaps  "normal"  man  is  the 
wrong  name  to  give  this  imaginary  person.  There  is  no  such 
person  in  the  world. 

Possibly  the  best  name  for  this  imaginary  customer  is  the 
"Standard  Customer."  There  are  only  three  questions  for  this 
man.    They  are : 

1.  What  are  the  goods  ? 

2.  What  is  your  proposition  ? 

3.  What  is  your  price? 

While  this  "Standard  Customer"  is  not  real,  making  an 
outline  of  a  talk  for  such  an  imaginary  and  ideal  customer 
will  show  what  are  the  bare  essentials  of  a  selling  talk. 

Your  description  of  the  goods  to  this  man  must  contain 
no  comparatives  or  superlatives.  In  fact,  it  must  contain  no 
adjectives,  except  those  referring  to  the  technical  construction 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  75 

of  the  goods.  It  must  be  merely  a  description  based  upon 
measurements,  weights  and  quaHties  and  a  statement  regarding 
the  facts  and  conditions  of  the  sale. 

It  is  only  natural  that  all  buyers  should  attempt  as  far  as 
possible  to  be  like  this  standard  or  normal  man  with  a  judg- 
ment so  perfect  that  it  can  be  influenced  neither  for  or  against 
a  proposition  by  any  outside  consideration.  But  the  majority 
of  them  fail,  like  the  blustering  fellow  who  said  to  the  book 
agent,  "Now,  young  man,  there  is  no  use  in  your  coming  here 
and  giving  me  a  lot  of  that  guff  to  the  effect  that  I  am  one 
of  the  leading  citizens  of  the  town,  and  that  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  you  to  have  my  name  at  the  head  of  your  list.  I 
have  heard  that  kind  of  talk  before,  and  it  has  no  effect  on 
me.  No  man  can  make  me  change  my  mind  by  giving  me  any 
of  that  soft  soap."  "I  know  that,"  said  the  book  agent,  "and 
that  is  just  why  I  came  here.  I  am  sick  and  tired  of  having 
to  hand  out  that  line  of  talk  to  prominent  men,  and  I  came 
here  just  because  I  knew  it  would  be  a  relief  to  sell  this  book 
to  one  man  on  its  own  merits  because  of  his  judgment."  He 
sold  the  book. 

The  student  will  see  that  all  the  lessons  thus  far  have  led 
up  to  the  construction  of  the  normal  selling  talk  to  which  the 
first  part  of  this  text  has  been  devoted.  The  study  of  this 
lesson  really  involves  a  consideration  of  all  that  has  gone 
before. 

If  all  men  were  alike,  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  only 
one  selling  talk. 

As  it  is,  the  best  way  to  understand  the  psychology  of 
selling  is  to  take  the  man  who  represents  the  standard,  or  nor- 
mal, or  average,  find  out  what  are  the  bare  necessities  of 
description  in  talking  to  him,  and  construct  a  normal  selling 
talk  which  will  consist  of : 

1.  Introduction. — For  audience. 

2.  Statement  of  purpose  of  visit. — For  attention. 

3.  Description  of  goods. — For  interest. 


76  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

4.  Statement  of  price. — For  desire. 

5.  Invitation  to  buy. — For  action. 

We  will  learn  later  to  deviate  from  this  "Normal  Selling 
Talk"  in  accordance  with  certain  rules. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 

Select  any  article  from  the  list  in  lesson  9.  Describe 
one  feature  of  it  in  detail,  using  the  name  of  your  customer  in 
talking  to  him. 


LESSONS  16-24 
Answering  Objections 

We  have  seen  that  the  fundamental  basis  of  a  selling  talk 
must  be  a  description  of  the  goods.  We  are  not  yet  ready 
to  introduce  topics  for  discussion  regarding  the  different  sorts 
of  description  that  are  necessary  for  the  different  sorts  of 
people,  nor  different  methods  of  presentation  that  must  be 
adopted  to  meet  different  situations.  These  and  many  other 
similar  matters  must  follow  after  the  next  nine  lessons. 

In  the  next  nine  lessons  is  a  series  of  objections  to  various 
points  brought  up  in  the  fundamental  or  normal  selling  talk 
that  we  have  just  considered,  and  for  the  present  one  of  these 
objections  is  assigned  for  discussion  in  each  of  the  following 
lessons.  The  object  of  the  lesson  will  be  in  each  case  for  the 
class  to  devise,  compose  and  arrange  in  order  all  of  the 
various  answers  that  might  be  given  to  these  objections.  The 
student  will  see  in  later  lessons  which  of  these  replies  should 
be  made  in  various  cases;  in  other  words,  how  to  suit  these 
replies  to  the  personality  of  the  customer  and  incidentally  how 
to  adapt  them  to  your  own  personality  as  a  salesman. 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  1*] 

For  the  present,  however,  during  this  and  the  eight  lessons 
to  follow,  the  problem  will  be  merely  that  of  presenting  all  the 
possible  answers  to  these  objections. 

"Your  Price  is  Too  ffigh" 

There  are  few  salesmen  who  understand  the  dignity  of  a 
price,  and  among  those  who  do  understand  this  there  are  still 
fewer  who  understand  exactly  when  a  price  ought  to  lose  its 
dignity.  That  is,  there  are  few  salesmen  who  understand  why 
a  man  should  usually  hold  his  goods  at  one  price  with  great 
rigidity,  and  there  are  fewer  still  who  understand  how  and 
when  to  lower  prices  in  extreme  cases. 

Most  buyers  have  learned  never  to  try  to  induce  a  salesman 
to  lower  his  prices  because  the  salesman  soon  learns  what  to 
expect  and  puts  up  his  prices  next  time.  Similarly  the  sales- 
man will  usually  find  that  it  is  to  his  benefit  never  to  make  a 
reduction,  because  if  he  does  it  once,  it  will  be  expected  always. 

Almost  all  salesmen  will  be  provided  with  instructions  from 
the  house  on  this  point.  Below  is  a  specimen  of  the  instruc- 
tions issued  by  one  house  to  its  salesmen. 

"It  is  sometimes  advisable  to  make  a  regular  schedule  of 
concessions.  When  this  is  deemed  wise,  treat  all  your  cus- 
tomers, in  the  same  locality,  exactly  the  same.  These  conces- 
sions should  in  all  cases  be  by  'giving  in,'  without  charge, 
something  in  addition  to  their  regular  purchase,  and  never 
by  'throwing  off'  from  the  regular  price.  Some  of  our  sales- 
men have  secured  excellent  results  by  means  of  a  definite  sys- 
tem of  'giving  in.'  Assuming  that  a  customer  has  evidently 
ended  his  selection,  you  may  say  then,  Tf  you  take  eighteen,  I 
am  allowed  to  give  an  extra  one  without  charge.'  Always  re- 
member that  this  'throwing  in'  is  to  induce  the  custom.er  to  in- 
crease his  selection  from  a  smaller  to  a  larger  amount." 

This  principle  might  be  applied  successfully  by  almost  any 
salesman,  the  point  being  for  him  not  to  definitely  lower  the 
price  of  any  article  but  to  add  something  to  the  order.     The 


"J^  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

suggestions  given  above  were  given  to  canvassers,  but  the 
general  principle  is  interesting  and  suggestive.  For  instance, 
there  are  wholesale  houses  that  refuse  to  give  special  reduc- 
tions from  special  articles,  but  will  give  a  general  reduction  on 
an  entire  bill  of  goods,  thus  protecting  themselves  from  the 
charge  of  underselling  any  given  item.  A  simple  illustration 
of  this  is  from  the  magazine  business  where  certain  magazines 
can  not  be  secured  below  a  given  price  if  purchased  singly; 
but  if  several  different  magazines  are  purchased  in  a  "club,"  a 
smaller  price  is  accepted.  The  public,  however,  does  not  know 
which  publication  is  being  reduced  in  price. 

"You  sold  these  goods  to  Jones  for  less  money  than  you 
did  to  me,"  is  a  complaint  which  almost  always  means  you  will 
get  little  future  business  from  the  customer  who  makes  it. 

The  art  of  making  concessions  gracefully  when  it  is  neces- 
sary to  make  them  at  all  is  a  very  valuable  one  to  the  salesman 
and  it  will  therefore  be  of  interest  for  us  in  the  exercise  for 
Lesson  16  to  answer  the  objection,  "Your  price  is  too  high." 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Let  each  student  be  assigned  one  exercise  until  all  are 
taken.     (Fifty  to  seventy-five  words.) 

As  an  illustration  for  the  exercises  below,  consider  the 
following  answer  to  the  objection  "Your  price  is  too  high." 
The  answer  must  show  the  purpose  for  which  the  article  is 
used.    The  article  in  mind  is  a  large  office  safe. 

"Mr.  Anderson,  you  might  well  say  that  the  price  of  this 
safe  is  too  high  if  its  only  purpose  were  to  protect  your  cash 
from  burglars ;  but  you  must  remember  that  it  protects  your 
cash,  your  valuable  papers,  and  your  books.  Remember  that  it 
not  only  protects  these  from  burglars,  but  from  mice,  vermin, 
fire,  and  water  as  well.  You  might  lose  in  a  single  fire 
papers  that  would  be  worth  to  you  many  times  the  cost  of  this 
safe." 


Elements   of    Salesmanship  79 

In  each  of  the  following,  you  must  select  a  given  article  and 
have  it  in  mind  before  proceeding.  Mention  the  name  of  the 
article  in  your  exercise. 

Write  an  answer  to  the  objection  "Your  price  is  too  high," 
referring  to: 

Exercise  1.     The  size  of  the  article  to  be  sold. 

Exercise  2.     The  color  of  the  article. 

Exercise  3.     The  style  of  the  article. 
•    Exercise  4.     The  productiveness  of  the  article. 

Exercise  5.  The  fact  that  your  system  of  installments 
makes  the  price  very  reasonable. 

Exercise  6.  The  reputation  of  your  house  as  a  guarantee 
that  the  price  is  fair. 

Exercise    7.     The  value  of  your  article  as  a  curio. 

Exercise     8.     The  cost  of  production  and  manufacture. 

Exercise     9.     The  public  demand  for  the  article. 

Exercise  10.  The  opinion  of  others  as  to  the  fairness  of 
your  price. 

Exercise  11.  The  fact  that  the  article  is  increasing  in 
value  and  that  the  present  price,  while  it  may  seem  high,  is 
perfectly  fair. 

Exercise  12.     The  fact  that  the  article  will  pay  for  itself. 

Exercise  13.  The  offer  of  your  house  to  refund  the  money 
if  the  dealer  is  not  satisfied  that  the  goods  are  worth  the  price. 

Exercise  14.  The  fact  that  competitors  are  charging  more 
for  the  same  goods. 

Exercise  15.  The  fact  that  the  article  can  be  adapted  to 
many  uses. 

Exercise  16.     The  fact  that  the  article  is  fashionable. 

Let  each  member  of  the  class  come  prepared  with  a  reply 
of  fifty  to  seventy-five  words,  which  shall  embody  only  one 
point.  Do  not  combine  several  reasons  in  this  little  exercise, 
but  confine  yourself  to  one  point. 


80 


Lessons   in    Salesmanship 


Student's  Exercises  for  Lessons  17-24 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words  Each.) 

Lesson  17.  Answer  the  objection  "Your  Hne  is  not  up-to- 
date." 

Lesson  18.  Answer  the  objection  "You  do  not  sell  in  small 
enough  quantities." 

Lesson  19.  Answer  the  objection  "I  never  heard  of  your 
house  before." 

Lesson  20.  Answer  the  objection  "Your  goods  are  not 
popular." 

Lesson  21.  Answer  the  objection  "I  do  not  like  the  colors 
in  your  line." 

Lesson  22.  Answer  the  objection  "Jones  &  Co.  tell  me  they 
lost  money  on  your  line." 

Lesson  23.  Answer  the  objection  "Your  terms  are  not  lib- 
eral." 

Lesson  24.  Answer  the  objection  "I  would  have  no  use  for 
your  article." 

GENERAL  REVIEW  CHART 


^KlNDS  OF 

^Name 
Address 

"^^ 

SALESMANSHIP 

Facts  of 

Extent  of  business _ 

■4-) 

identification 

Attitude  toward  article 

rt 

and 

Attitude  toward  your 

X! 

u 

Kinds  of 

description 
(See  Chart  2) 

make 

(See  Chart  3) 
Personality 

s 

SALESMEN 

.  (See  page  22) 

'Customer     < 

'Observation 

Factors  ^ 

Thing  Sold 

How  to  find 
out  about       < 
customer 

'Inquiry  of 
Customer 

< 

4 

OF  A  SALE 

(See  Chart  4) 

Invest!-^ 

Inquiry  of 

^ 

^  gation 

others 

CD 

Selection  of 

Commercial 

w 

Salesman 

prospects 

Associations 

< 

in 

L(See  Chart  5) 

V.  (See  Chart  6) 

Sales 

.CLASSIFIEI 

D 

PART  II 

A  Study  of  the  Influence  of  the  Salesman  Upon 
the  Mind  of  the  Customer 

LESSON  25 

Mind  Control 

The  first  part  of  this  lesson  is  devoted  to  a  discussion  of 
Mind  Control.     Read  the  following  chart  carefully  at  this  time. 


MIND 
CONTROL 


CHART  SEVEN 

I  Acts  through  the  five^ 
Proper  <{  avenues  of  the  mind 


Is  attained  by  correct 
process  of  presenting 
an  argument 


Sight 

Hearing 

Touch 

Smell 

Taste 

Audience 

Attention 

Interest 

Desire 

Action 


Improper —  fHypnotism  or 

Attained  through  i     Mesmerism 
^Trickery 


We  have  now  studied  the  three  factors  of  the  sale :  the 
salesman,  the  customer  and  the  goods.  These  are  what  might 
be  likened  to  the  flesh,  blood,  and  bones  of  a  sale,  out  of  which 
the  salesman's  knowledge  is  constructed.  But  they  are  the 
mere  body,  simply  half  of  the  salesman's  being,  a  perfect 
physical  structure  without  soul  or  spirit.  The  soul  and  spirit 
of  this  body  is  the  psychological  element  that  enables  a  sales- 


si 


82  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

man  to  make  a  sale  through  the  influence  of  his  mind  and  his 
knowledge  of  the  customer's  mind,  while  another  salesman 
who  may  understand  his  goods  and  propositions  just  as  well 
and  be  as  familiar  with  the  three  factors  of  the  sale  in  a  tech- 
nical way,  is  unable  to  accomplish  anything  at  all. 

Just  as  a  body  composed  of  blood,  bones,  and  flesh  may  be 
a  dead  body,  so  it  is  possible  for  a  salesman  to  understand  the 
facts  recited  in  the  previous  lesson  of  this  course,  and  be  a 
dead  salesman.  It  takes  the  breath  of  life  to  create  being,  and 
it  takes  the  breath  of  life  to  make  a  salesman;  but  while  we 
cannot  breathe  the  breath  of  life  into  a  dead  body,  we  can  show 
a  dead  salesman  how  to  arise  and  make  a  success  of  himself 
through  a  study  of  the  action  of  the  mind. 

It  may  be  an  attractive  figure  of  speech  to  say  that  the  pre- 
ceding lessons  have  contained  a  study  of  the  physiology  of  the 
sale  while  what  is  to  follow  will  refer  to  the  psychology  of  the 
sale.  Part  I  can  be  compared  to  the  study  of  the  body;  Part  2 
refers  to  the  study  of  the  mind. 

At  the  risk  of  seeming  for  a  moment  to  engage  the  reader's 
attention  with  the  vague  and  mysterious,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  whole  question  is  fundamentally  a  question  of  mind-con- 
trol. When  you  have  studied  the' remaining  lessons,  however, 
and  discovered  what  is  meant  by  mind  control,  you  will  see 
that  this  does  not  mean  anything  that  is  hazy  or  nebulous,  or  in 
the  least  degree  indefinite,  but  that  it  refers  merely  to  the 
proper  influence  that  every  mind  may  have  over  every  other 
mind.  These  lessons  will  show  you  how  this  can  be  improved, 
strengthened  and  directed  by  the  salesman,  in  the  interest  of 
his  work. 

First  let  us  clearly  understand  that  there  is  a  distinction 
between  proper  mind-control  and  hypnotism  or  other  forms  of 
mesmeric  influence. 

For  example,  the  salesman  who  arranges  his  thought  and 
presentation  logically,  so  as  to  lead  his  customer  into  the 
proper  attitude  toward  his  goods,  is  well  within  his   rights. 


Making   a    Sale  83 

So,  also,  is  he  who  introduces  new  and  overwhelming  argu- 
ments, and  he  who  studies  methods  of  so  impressing  his  per- 
sonality on  a  customer  as  to  inspire  confidence.  Certainly 
one  cannot  justly  criticise  a  salesman  for  studying  his  cus- 
tomer's face  and  manner  in  such  a  way  as  to  find  out  the  exact 
minute  when  he  would  be  most  likely  to  consent  to  a  purchase, 
or  for  any  other  studious  effort  to  learn  exactly  when  to  urge 
his  strongest  points.  The  salesman  must  learn  when  his  argu- 
ment is  at  its  best,  and,  conversely,  when  the  customer's  mind 
is  in  its  most  receptive  condition.  That  is  the  minute  for 
action.  The  salesman  must  be  able  to  recognize  it  when  it 
comes,  and  must  practice  every  fair  method  of  bringing  it 
about.  He  must  compel  the  buyer  to  minimize  any  objections 
in  his  mind  and  to  become  enthusiastic  over  the  advantages 
that  the  salesman  has  presented. 

This  is  proper  and  legitimate  mind-control.  It  has  nothing 
to  do  with  hypnotism,  mesmerism,  making  a  vSale  to  an  intoxi- 
cated or  demented  person,  or  any  other  unfair  method  of 
taking  advantage  of  an  abnormal  condition  of  the  buyer's 
mind. 

The  following  are  illustrations  of  legitimate  mind-control: 

1.  A  salesman  finds  a  buyer  opposed  to  his  article  because 
he  does  not  understand  its  merits.  A  simple  explanation 
compels  the  buyer  to  change  his  mind. 

2.  A  salesman  finds  that  a  buyer  is  impulsive  and  enthusi- 
astic. He  therefore  describes  his  goods  enthusiastically  and 
secures  the  order  "on  the  spur  of  the  moment." 

3.  A  salesman  finds  it  difficult  to  secure  the  buyer's  sig- 
nature to  an  order.  He  watches  his  customer's  face  until  it 
shows  a  keen  interest,  then  hands  him  pencil  and  paper  with  a 
request  to  sign,  at  exactly  the  right  moment. 

4.  A  salesman  learns  that  his  customer  is  inclined  to 
favor  those  salesmen  for  whom  he  has  a  personal  friendship. 
He  therefore  cultivates  a  feeling  of  friendship  between  himself 
and  his  customer,  and  uses  it  to  secure  an  order. 


84  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

These  are  simple  illustrations,  but  they  make  the  meaning 
clear.  The  student  will  no  doubt  be  able  to  add  many  similar 
illustrations  from  his  own  knowledge  or  hearsay,  such  as  the 
use,  at  the  proper  time,  of  the  names  of  well-known  pur- 
chasers, etc. 

Mr.  W.  D.  Moody,  in  Chapter  13  of  "Men  Who  Sell 
Things,"  discusses  "The  Mind  as  a  Magnet."     He  says: 

"There  is  no  question  that  the  power  of  attraction  which 
gives  one  man  ascendency  over  others  can  be  cultivated  by  any 
one  who  is  sufficiently  persistent  and  painstaking  in  the  effort. 
Psychologists  have  not  given  us  any  formula  for  developing 
this  quality.  Any  one  who  is  interested,  however,  can  suggest 
ways  and  means  for  himself,  which  will  help  toward  the  de- 
sired end. 

"The  first  step  toward  accomplishment  in  this  direction  is  a 
careful  study  of  the  successful  men  who  are  described  as  'born 
salesmen/  and  who  get  their  results  by  exercising  this  mental 
force.  It  will  be  found  that  all  men  possessed  of  personal 
magnetism  are  very  much  in  earnest.  Their  intense  earnestness 
is  magnetism.  Their  minds  are  filled  with  one  controlling  idea 
— success  in  whatever  undertaking  they  have  in  mind." 

He  enlarges  on  this  idea  for  some  time  and  then  says, 

"The  second  step  toward  gaining  the  end  in  view  is  for 
the  salesman  to  put  himself  as  far  as  possible  in  entire  har- 
mony with  all  the  conditions  under  which  he  works.  To  do 
this,  his  relations  with  his  house  should  be  candid  and  agree- 
able; there  should  be  no  rankling  remembrances  of  differences 
which  he  may  have  had  with  the  manager  or  others  in  the 
house.  He  should  have  absolute  faith  in  the  product  he  is 
selling;  he  should  feel  in  entire  sympathy  with  every  pros- 
pective customer  with  whom  he  talks." 

He  finally  sums  up  the  whole  matter  in  the  following  lan- 
guage : 

"No  one  should  confuse  the  mental  action  described  here 
with  hypnotism.    It  is  not  recommended  to  make  an  attack  on 


Making   a    Sale  85 

the  will  power  of  a  customer,  for  that  is  neither  fair  play  nor 
practical  business.  One  can,  however,  develop  a  power  to 
arouse  the  interest  and  good-will  of  others,  so  that  they  will 
sometimes  do  voluntarily  what  a  hypnotist  seeks  to  make  them 
do  involuntarily.  Such  power,  when  acquired,  assures  some 
measure  of  success  at  least." 

The  formula  for  developing  this  quality  is  very  simple.  It 
is  a  study  of  the  five  senses  and  the  manner  in  which  they 
influence  the  mind,  and  a  constant  eflfort  to  apply  in  practice 
what  is  learned. 

The  Five  Senses 

CHART  EIGHT 

r  Sight 


THE  AVENUES  TO  THE  MIND  < 


Hearing 
Touch 
Smell 
Taste 


The  student  learned,  in  the  early  grades  at  school,  that  the 
five  senses  are  sight,  hearing,  touch,  smell,  and  taste. 

These  five  senses  may  be  called  the  avenues  to  the  mind. 
It  is  impossible  for  any  sensation  to  reach  the  objective  mind 
except  through  one  of  the  five  senses. 

The  student  should  give  some  time  to  this  thought.  Classify 
all  the  facts  you  can  know  about  anything.  Did  you  see  them  ? 
Did  you  hear  them  ?  Did  you  hear  about  them  ?  Did  you  touch 
the  object?  Or  taste  it?  Or  smell  it?  Is  there  anything  you 
ever  learned  or  could  learn,  except  through  one  of  these  five 
avenues  to  the  mind?  Memory  connects  the  mind  with  the 
past;  imagination,  with  the  future;  but  memory  and  imagina- 
tion cannot  grasp  any  impression  except  through  its  association 
with  one  of  the  five  senses. 

With  this  thought  in  mind,  we  see  that,  in  learning  to  con- 
trol the  mind  of  the  buyer,  it  is  essential  that  the  salesman  learn 


86  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

to  appeal  to  each  of  the  five  senses  successfully.     Let  us  take 
them  up  one  by  one. 

Sight 

First,  the  appearance  of  your  goods  is  important.  As  stated 
in  a  previous  lesson,  whatever  you  are  selling  must  be  clean, 
attractive  to  the  eye,  and  well  arranged  for  display.  Dirty, 
mussed-up  samples  are  likely  to  do  the  salesman  more  harm 
than  good.  The  importance  of  this  is  well  illustrated  in  the 
sale  of  expensive  and  valuable  articles,  such  as  jewelry,  in 
which  great  care  is  taken  to  make  an  attractive  display.  But 
this  should  not  be  confined  to  expensive  articles  only.  Even 
the  cheapest,  most  inferior  article  should  be  displayed  as  at- 
tractively as  the  salesman  knows  how. 

The  salesman  should  learn  that  the  personal  impression 
that  he  creates  depends  largely  upon  the  same  thing.  He  must 
be  so  dressed  and  groomed  that  he  cannot  fail  to  make  a  pleas- 
ant impression.  He  must  have  an  agreeable  expression  upon 
his  face,  and  on  the  other  hand  he  must  not  overdo  matters  by 
being  over-dressed  or  hypocritically  polite. 

You  will  see  from  the  foregoing  that  we  are  merely 
gathering  together  certain  facts  that  have  been  told  you  before, 
and  are  showing  why  these  things  help  the  salesman  in  his  work 
by  enabling  him  to  influence  the  buyer  through  the  sense  of 
sight. 

The  salesman  must  not  only  influence  the  buyer  through  the 
sense  of  sight,  but  he  must  cultivate  his  own  sense  of  sight  in 
such  a  positive  way  as  to  make  careful  observations  of  what  he 
sees.  You  will  see  that  the  rule  works  both  ways.  Not  only 
can  the  salesman  influence  his  customer,  but  he  can  help  him- 
self by  giving  careful  study  to  the  sense  of  sight  and  how  he 
can  serve  it  or  make  it  serve  him. 

Hearing 

The  salesman  should  endeavor  to  cultivate  a  pleasant  and 
interesting  voice.    It  is  as  essential  to  his  success  as  it  is  to  the 


Making   a    Sale  87 

success  of  an  orator.  This  does  not  mean  that  it  is  necessary 
for  every  successful  salesman  to  have  a  beautiful,  well-modu- 
lated tone,  but  it  does  mean  that  he  must  study  the  question  of 
using  the  voice  effectively.  He  must  speak  clearly  and  dis- 
tinctly. He  must  avoid  giving  offense  by  using  a  rasping, 
quarrelsome  tone.  He  must  endeavor  to  make  his  voice  sound 
like  the  voice  of  a  cultured  person.  He  must  study  his  lan- 
guage so  that  errors  of  grammar,  blasphemy,  and  other  things 
that  offend  the  ear  will  not  creep  in  where  they  are  likely  to 
injure  his  cause. 

If  the  article  he  is  selling  is  a  machine,  he  must  remember 
that  the  noise  made  by  the  machine  is  likely  to  be  an  important 
consideration.  Typewriters,  for  instance,  are  not  noiseless 
machines,  but  some  typewriters  sell  far  more  rapidly  than 
others  because  the  maker  had  sense  enough  to  give  some 
consideration  to  this  topic.  IMachines  that  make  grating,  harsh 
noises  are  often  not  satisfactory  on  this  account.  There  is  in 
existence  today  a  regularly-formed  Society  for  the  Prevention 
of  Unnecessary  Noise.  People  do  not  like  noisy  machines 
when  quiet  ones  will  serve  the  purpose. 

There  are  certain  articles,  such  as  musical  instruments,  in 
which  the  sound  produced  is  the  important  feature  of  the 
article.  Here,  of  course,  the  sense  of  hearing  becomes  the 
chief  factor. 

Let  the  salesman  remember,  too,  that  he  must  exercise  his 
own  sense  of  hearing,  through  attention,  so  that  nothing  im- 
portant that  is  said  will  escape  his  own  attention. 

Touch 

There  are  many  articles  in  the  sale  of  which  the  sense  of 
touch  is  important.  It  is  a  common  art  in  selling  clothing  to 
get  the  customer  to  feel  the  quality  of  the  goods.  The  sales- 
man of  men's  hats  asks  you  to  run  your  fingers  over  the  hat  and 
feel  how  smooth  it  is.  The  smoothness  of  the  hat  might  not 
be  a  matter  really  worthy  of  any  consideration,  because  the  hat 


88  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

is  to  be  on  your  head,  and  people  are  going  to  look  at  it  rather 
than  touch  it.  But  the  salesman  knows  if  it  is  pleasant  to  the 
touch,  the  impression  will  be  an  agreeable  one,  and  will  convey 
an  idea  of  good  quality. 

The  matter  of  touch  is  important  when  you  are  shaking 
hands  with  a  customer.  A  firm,  cordial  handclasp  is  a  valu- 
able asset. 

Smell 

It  should  be  unnecessary  to  state  that  the  salesman  should 
be  very  careful  of  the  way  his  clothing  smells,  but  there  are 
many  salesmen  who  are  careless  in  this  regard.  People  are 
much  more  particular  about  this  than  we  usually  think  they  are. 
For  a  man's  clothing  or  his  breath  to  reek  of  some  filthy  smell, 
whether  it  is  of  tobacco  or  catarrh,  or  anything  else  objection- 
able, is  very  damaging  to  his  personal  influence.  A  barber 
may  lose  a  great  deal  of  business  because  he  insists  on  chewing 
tobacco  while  serving  his  customers. 

A  dentist's  business  may  suffer  from  the  same  cause,  and 
some  salesmen  have  breath  so  offensive  as  to  cause  the  loss 
of  considerable  business.  Customers  refuse  to  talk  to  them. 
In  the  case  of  certain  goods  such  as  perfumery,  the  sense  of 
smell  is  the  chief  factor  in  the  sale. 

Taste 

The  sense  of  taste  is  important  in  case  of  groceries,  drinks 
and  other  things  the  sale  of  which  depends  materially  upon 
the  taste.  In  other  cases  it  cannot  have  much  to  do  with  the 
salesman's  business,  if  anything. 

A  very  limited  number  of  illustrations  have  been  given  of 
the  way  in  which  the  five  senses  must  be  appealed  to  by  the 
salesman.  The  student  will  readily  add  many  illustrations  to 
those  that  have  been  given. 

There  are  many  important  questions  connected  with  the 
salesman's  influence  over  the  customer  to  which  it  is  likely 
that  the  average  salesman  gives  little  or  no  thought,  in  which 


Making   a    Sale  '      89 

mistakes  might  be  avoided  by  careful  attention  to  the  manner 
in  which  the  influence  of  the  salesman  is  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  customer  through  the  five  senses.  A  study  of  the  five  ''ave- 
nues of  the  mind"  will  help  the  salesman  to  develop  the  power 
of  attraction  that  gives  one  man  ascendency  over  others. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Suppose  you  are  a  wholesale  salesman  of  fruit  of  various 
kinds.  State  how  your  goods  could  appeal  to  the  customer 
through  each  sense  in  the  cases  of  different  kinds  of  fruit. 


LESSON  26 
Presenting  the  Argument 

It  is  a  comparatively  simple  matter  to  present  an  argument 
to  a  normal  or  standard  customer  like  the  one  we  have  con- 
sidered, but  more  difficult  to  adapt  your  descriptions  and  sell- 
ing talk  to  the  needs  of  the  individual  case.  It  is  well 
enough  to  discuss  what  might  be  said  to  such  a  customer  as 
we  have  been  studying  in  the  last  twelve  lessons;  but  the 
salesman's  chief  ability,  if  he  is  a  successful  salesman,  must 
be  the  ability  to  understand  men  and  to  use  with  each  customer 
the  special  line  of  argument  and  special  methods  of  presenta- 
tion that  are  adapted  to  his  case. 

We  shall  study  this  matter  carefully  in  the  next  five  lessons. 

The  process  of  a  sale  is  properly  divided  into  five  parts. 

CHART  NINE 

'  1.  Gaining  an  audience. 
2.  Securing  attention. 
PROCESS  OF  A  SALE  \  3.  Awakening  interest. 

4.  Arousing  desire. 

5.  Compelling  action. 


90  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

Please  notice  the  order  in  which  these  topics  are  named; 
audience,  att^tion,  interest,  desire,  action.  This  is  the  order 
in  which  you  will  have  to  present  your  argument. 

Sometimes  the  first  two  of  the  above  topics  are  included 
under  one  head,  but  this  is  not  a  careful  classification.  Gaining 
an  audience  with  a  man  and  getting  his  attention  are  two 
quite  different  things.  Many  salesmen  are  clever  enough  to 
gain  an  audience  with  any  man,  but  not  forceful  enough  to 
really  gain  attention.  We  shall  therefore  consider  these  as 
separate  topics. 

Gaining  an  Audience 

CHART  TEN 


GAINING  AN 
AUDIENCE 


Persuading  buyer  to  see  you 

Persuading  clerk  to  let  you  see  buyer 

Arranging  time  to  suit  buyer's  conven- 
ience 


This  presents  several  different  problems. 
1.    Persuading  the  buyer  to  see  you. 

If  the  buyer  is  busy,  it  may  be  necessary  for  your  to  tell 
him  definitely  how  much  of  his  time  you  want.  If  you  do  so, 
you  must  be  sure  that  your  statement  is  truthful,  and  you 
must  not  overstep  the  bounds  of  your  promise. 

It  would  be  well  for  you  to  show  by  your  attitude  that  you 
are  a  very  busy  man  yourself.  This  will  indicate  to  him  that 
you  consider  your  time  valuable  as  well  as  his  and  are  not 
disposed  to  waste  any  of  it. 

It  may  be  necessary  for  you  to  devise  some  plan  to  compel 
the  attention  of  the  customer  who  thinks  he  is  busy  or  who 
really  is  busy  but  ought  to  take  time  to  see  your  line.  This  is 
not  always  possible,  but  sometimes  it  is  necessary  because  of 
the  fact  that  some  customers  like  to  assume  the  attitude  of 
never  having  time  to  spend  with  salesmen. 

4' 


Making   a    Sale  91 

In  any  of  the  above  cases  it  is  well  for  the  salesman  to  be 
thoroughly  grounded  in  the  fundamental  proposition  laid  down 
in  the  first  lesson  of  this  course,  that  a  fair  bargain  benefits 
both  parties.  Believe  this  about  your  proposition,  and  you 
will  not  feel  that  you  are  imposing  upon  a  customer  when  you 
require  him  to  take  time  to  look  at  your  line.  The  salesman 
should  be  courteous  and  obliging  at  all  times,  but  he  should 
never  forget  th^t  the  benefits  of  whatever  transaction  may  be 
entered  into  are  mutual,  and  that  he  is  not  asking  a  buyer  to 
waste  time. 

Sometimes  a  deeper  difficulty  enters  into  the  question  of 
gaining  an  audience.  Perhaps  your  firm  has  offended  this 
customer  on  a  previous  occasion.  There  are  many  things  that 
must  be  borne  in  mind  if  this  is  the  case.  If  the  previous 
salesman  gave  offense  without  cause,  he  should,  of  course,  be 
apologized  for.  If  the  oflFense  arose  through  a  mistake  in 
the  shipping  or  billing  department,  it  should  be  explained  that 
your  house  has  taken  steps  to  remedy  the  condition  that  made 
the  offense  possible.  If  the  grievance  is  more  serious,  such 
as  the  customer's  discovery  that  others  have  been  sold  goods 
cheaper  than  you  sold  them  to  him,  the  customer  must  be  told 
the  exact  facts  in  the  case,  which  of  course  should  justify 
your  house. 

If  you  know  in  advance  that  the  customer  has  a  complaint, 
it  is  perhaps  well  to  settle  the  complaint  without  any  reference 
to  a  prospective  sale  in  order  to  convince  the  customer  that 
you  consider  the  matter  a  very  serious  one.  A  representative 
of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  says  that  if  he  has  five  pros- 
pective customers  on  a  road  twenty-five  miles  long,  and  one 
complaining  customer  at  the  end  of  that  road,  his  instructions 
from  his  company  are  to  go  and  settle  the  complaint  first  even 
though  he  has  to  pass  every  one  of  those  five  customers  on 
the  road. 

There  is  no  question  about  the  wisdom  of  this  policy  for 
a  house  that  intends  to  do  a  steady  and  increasing  business. 


92  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

The  customer  must  be  shown  absolutely  that  you  are  anxious 
first  to  clear  up  the  difficulty  and  that  without  reference  to  a 
new  order. 

2.  Persuading  an  office  helper  or  other  employee  to  let  you  see 
the  buyer. 

Sometimes  this  is  one  of  the  salesman's  most  serious 
obstacles.  Of  course  the  salesman  who  is  known  and  whose 
line  is  wanted  in  a  store  will  always  find  the, buyer  ready  to 
see  -him,  but  often,  especially  when  the  salesman  is  selling  a 
specialty  or  some  office  device  or  convenience,  he  is  met  at  the 
door  by  a  very  resolute  person  who  informs  him  that  the 
manager  is  not  able  to  see  him  at  all. 

Sometimes  it  is  necessary  for  the  salesman  to  explain  his 
proposition  in  detail  to  the  subordinate  and  convince  the  sub- 
ordinate that  it  is  something  that  ought  to  be  called  to  the 
employer's  attention. 

Sometimes  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  refrain  from  telling 
this  person  his  business  in  order  that  the  prospect  of  seeing 
the  buyer  will  not  be  injured. 

Sometimes  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  call  up  the  buyer  by 
phone  in  order  to  get  past  this  obstacle.  There  are  many 
amusing  stories  told  by  salesmen  who  have  been  confronted 
with  this  difficulty  and  have  solved  it  in  an  interesting  way. 
One  of  the  brightest  salesmen  in  business  one  day  sent  in 
his  card  to  an  old  fellow  named  Guflfey  at  a  time  when  the 
old  man's  usual  gruff  disposition  had  been  aggravated  until  he 
was  ready  to  break  a  blood  vessel.  There  was  a  glass  door 
between  them,  and  when  the  salesman's  card  was  handed  to 
Guffey,  the  gruff  old  man  tore  it  up  and  threw  it  into  the 
waste-basket.    The  salesman  saw  this  through  the  glass  door. 

When  the  ordinary  salesman  sees  a  thing  like  that,  you 
don't  have  to  break  his  ribs  with  a  club  to  get  him  out  of  the 
building. 

But  this  man  was  different.  His  brain  was  as  quick  as  a 
self-loading  repeater.     He  said  to  the  boy,  "Tell  Mr.  Guffey 


Making   a    Sale  93 

• 
I'm  sorry  he  can't  see  me,  but  ask  him  to  return  my  card,  as  I 
have  run  short." 

Mr.  Guffey  granted  the  interview. 

As  a  rule,  this  salesman  paid  little  attention  to  the  boys 
who  wanted  his  card,  if  he  could  get  past  them  by  hook  or 
crook.  "If  there's  no  one  talking  to  him,"  he  would  say,  "I'll 
go  right  in,"  and  in  he  would  go. 

A  canvasser  once  secured  a  splendid  position  as  a  result 
of  some  clever  work  he  did.  The  man  he  wanted  to  sell  to 
said,  "I'm  in  too  much  of  a  hurry  to  see  you  today.  My  time 
is  worth  five  dollars  a  minute." 

"I'll  take  a  minute's  worth,"  replied  the  salesman,  and  laid 
a  $5.00  bill  on  the  man's  desk.  He  talked  one  minute,  and 
then  said,  "Mr.  Ames,  I  am  not  through.  I'll  take  another 
minute,  and  that  will  cost  you  five  dollars."  He  put  the  bill 
into  his  pocket,  talked  another  minute,  and  has  been  working 
ever  since  for  the  man  to  whom  he  was  selling,  who  admired 
his  cleverness. 

3.    Arranging  your  time  to  suit  the  buyer's  convenience. 

This  is  not  always  an  easy  task.  Sometimes  the  buyer 
really  has  no  excuse  for  not  seeing  you,  and  does  not  want 
to  see  you  at  all.  Of  course,  in  such  a  case,  your  best  plan 
is  to  get  an  appointment  with  him  if  you  can;  if  you  are 
unable  to  do  so,  proceed  to  take  a  few  minutes  of  his  time 
right  then  and  there  if  you  can  do  so  by  means  of  anything 
short  of  knocking  him  down.  You  may  be  able  to  secure  an 
order  as  the  fellow  did  who,  when  asked  by  his  prospective 
employer  whether  he  had  ever  been  in  the  penitentiary,  ans- 
wered that  he  had.  The  employer  asked  what  for,  and  he 
replied,  "For  nearly  killing  a  man  who  refused  to  give  me  an 
order." 

There  is  no  question  but  that  the  "fighting  spirit"  wins. 

More  often,  however,  the  buyer  is  serious  in  his  statement 
that  he  must  see  you  at  another  time.  In  such  a  case  as  this, 
you  will  do  wisely  to  let  him  select  the  time,  unless  you  have 


94  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

• 

some  excellent  reason  why  you  cannot  meet  him  at  the  time 
he  suggests.  Such  a  man  as  this  will  usually  be  reasonable  in 
arranging  for  a  time  convenient  to  you  both. 

Be  prompt  in  keeping  appointments. 

There  is  nothing  that  can  injure  you  much  more  at  the 
very  start  of  your  sale  than  tardiness.  The  customer  feels 
that  he  has  granted  you  a  great  favor  in  stating  an  exact  time 
when  he  will  be  willing  to  see  you.  It  is  eminently  fitting, 
therefore,  that  you  do  not  waste  any  of  his  time — not  one 
minute  of  it.  It  is  said  that  Marshall  Field  made  it  a  condi- 
tion of  his  becoming  a  director  of  any  corporation  that  all 
meetings  were  to  begin  promptly  on  time.  Horace  Greeley 
once  claimed  that  he  wrote  most  of  his  editorials  while  waiting 
for  others  to  keep  their  appointments  with  him. 

Nothing  jars  a  prompt,  exact,  business-like  man  much 
more  than  to  be  compelled  to  wait.  In  considering  the  entire 
subject  of  gaining  an  audience,  go  .back  to  Lesson  25,  and 
think  of  the  number  of  ways  in  which  each  of  the  five  senses 
of  the  buyer  can  be  appealed  to,  to  secure  you  an  audience.  In 
getting  an  audience  the  distinct  object  to  be  gained  through 
sight  is  that  the  buyer  must  realize  by  looking  at  you  that  you 
mean  business,  and  that  you  have  something  that  will  be  of 
value  to  him.  The  same  object  is  served  if  you  make  your 
appeal  by  showing  him  one  or  two  selected  samples. 

The  same  impression  must  be  conveyed  to  him  through  the 
sense  of  hearing.  A  busy  man  is  not  likely  to  be  interested 
in  a  salesman  with  a  drawl,  nor  is  an  irascible  man  likely  to 
be  pleased  with  a  display  of  irascibility  exhibited  in  the  sales- 
man's voice. 

Whether  the  sense  of  touch,  taste  or  smell  can  be  appealed 
to  at  this  time  depends  upon  what  is  being  sold.  There  are 
very  few  times  when  the  appeal  to  these  senses  would 
actually  be  of  assistance  in  gaining  an  audience,  though  of 
course  a  salesman  of  perfumery  might  secure  an  audience  by 
attracting  attention  to  the  odor  of  his  product,  and  so  on. 


Making  a   Sale  95 

Exercise :  Write  fifty  words  asking  a  buyer  to  come  to 
your  display  room  at  a  hotel,  at  any  hour  he  chooses,  to  see 
your  line. 

CHART  ELEVEN 

1.  By  waiting 

2.  By  interesting  point  of  description 

3.  By  quiet  remonstrance 

4.  By  getting  buyer  to  your  sample-room 

5.  By  favorable  first  impressions 

6.  By  impressing  buyer  with  advantages 

YOU  OFFER — not  APPEALING  TO  CHARITY 


SECURING 
ATTENTION  ' 


LESSON  27 

Securing  the  Attention 

Up  to  this  point  you  have  merely  secured  the  chance  to 
talk  to  your  man.  The  second  problem  is  that  of  securing 
his  positive  attention.  You  must  not  allow  your  words  to  go 
"in  one  of  his  ears  and  out  of  the  other."  You  must  learn 
how  to  make  them  stick  in  his  mind.  It  is  important  here 
that  you  describe  clearly  and  correctly  the  article  which  you 
have  spent  so  much  time  in  studying.  It  is  also  important 
that  you  look  carefully  to  the  exercise  of  your  ability  to  use 
your  voice  and  your  powers  of  observation  effectively.  But 
you  have  a  much  more  difficult  and  important  problem  at  this 
time  than  you  have  yet  faced.  If  your  customer  is  not  giving 
you  his  attention,  you  must  compel  him  to  do  so.  This  may 
be  done  in  many  ways. 

1.  By  waiting  until  anything  else  he  is  thinking  of  is  off 
his  mind. 

2.  By  saying  something  so  attractive  about  your  goods  or 
talking  in  such  an  interesting  way  that  he  is  obliged  to  give 
heed  to  what  you  are  saying. 


96  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

3.  By  calling  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  is  not  listen- 
ing carefully  to  what  you  have  to  say  and  insisting  that  he 
do  so  in  his  own  interest. 

4.  By  managing  to  get  him  entirely  away  from  his  present 
surroundings  so  that  you  can  have  his  undivided  attention. 

Of  course,  you  have  to  study  your  man  carefully  to  know 
which  one  of  these  plans  to  adopt,  but  you  may  be  assured 
that  you.  will  fail  if  you  do  not  vigorously  demand  and  secure 
his  attention  by  some  one  of  the  above  or  other  means. 

It  ought  to .  be  almost  unnecessary  to  say  that  only  the 
.vigorous,  enthusiastic  man  who  loves  his  goods  and  believes 
in  his  proposition  will  ever  secure  the  undivided,  enthusiastic 
attention  of  a  customer.  Usually  a  failure  to  secure  the  atten- 
tion of  your  customer  after  you  have  secured  an  audience 
with  him,  is  a  most  decided  evidence  of  weakness  on  your 
part;  but  it  is  a  weakness  that  can  readily  be  conquered. 

If  a  man  has  given  you  audience  with  him  you  have  a 
right  to  assume  that  you  are  entitled  to  his  attention. 

You  must  have  this  attention.  Of  course,  the  way  to  get 
it  is  to  make  your  statement  of  the  case  so  fascinating,  or 
your  personality  so  attractive,  that  the  buyer  will  be  induced  to 
give  you  the  whole  focus  of  his  mind. 

First  Impressions 

The  first  impression  that  the  buyer  gains  of  the  salesman  is 
frequently  lasting. 

The  reason  for  this  is  hard  for  a  poor  salesman  to  under- 
stand, because  he  does  not  understand  the  deep  principle  of 
psychology  that  makes  the  first  impression  important. 

"Before  a  man  acts  on  any  subject,  a  decision  is  made  in 
his  mind,"  says  a  prominent  writer  on  psychology.  Applied 
to  this  lesson,  this  means  that  the  sale  takes  place  in  the  mind 
of  the  buyer  before  it  is  made. 

It  follows  that  anything  that  can  influence  the  mind  of  the 
buyer  before  the  sale  is  made,  is  valuable.     It  does  not  make 


Making   a    Sale  97 

any  difference  whether  this  influence  is  logically  connected 
with  the  goods  or  not.  Every  influence  that  is  favorable  helps 
the  sale. 

If  men  were  absolutely  logical,  they  would  say,  *'I  do  not 
care  whether  this  salesman  is  white  or  black.  I  do  not  care 
whether  he  is  dirty  or  clean.  It  makes  no  difference  to  me 
whether  his  breath  is  foul  or  not.  I  am  not  concerned  as  to 
whether  his  clothes  are  tailor-made  or  shoddy.  I  do  not  care 
whether  his  voice  is  harsh  or  pleasant;  nor  shall  I  consider 
whether  his  manner  is  courteous  or  offensive.  I  shall  buy  of 
him  because  I  believe  his  proposition  is  a  good  one." 

But  men  are  not  built  on  that  plan, — not  once  in  a  thousand 
times.  The  sale  takes  place  first  in  the  mind.  If  the  mind 
has  been  unfavorably  influenced  by  any  first  impression,  the 
sale  is  made  difficult  in  the  mind.  This  is  evidence  that  the 
buyer  is  illogical,  as  remarked  above ;  but  there  is  one  very 
strong,  practical  point  connected  with  it ;  that  is,  that  buyers 
have  learned  that  good  reliable  houses  ordinarily  put  out 
salesmen  whose  personal  habits  are  not  objectionable.  With 
an  objectionable  salesman,  the  inference  must  be  that  the  house 
is  unreliable. 

The  salesman's  entire  problem,  after  he  has  succeeded  in 
getting  the  attention  of  the  buyer,  is  to  create  such  a  favorable 
series  of  impressions  in  the  buyer's  mind,  that  the  goods  will 
sell  themselves.  It  should  make  no  difference  to  the  salesman 
whether  or  not  the  impression  created  is  logically  connected 
with  the  goods  under  discussion.  His  business  is  to  create  the 
impressions  that  influence  the  trade.  Sometimes  these  impres- 
sions have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  goods  for  sale. 
It  is  not  for  the  salesman  to  dispute  this  fact,  but  to  recognize 
it,  and  so  conduct  himself  that  these  outside  impressions  will 
always  be  favorable. 

.  How  to  create  favorable  first  impressions  in  the  mind  of 
the  customer  is  an  important  question. 

One  of  the  most  important  points  to  be  considered  in  this 


98  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

connection  is  that  it  is  immensely  to  the  salesman's  advantage 
to  get  the  buyer  influenced  in  favor  of  his  article  at  an  early 
stage.  The  salesman  must  therefore  avoid  anything  that 
would  arouse  criticism  of  his  goods  or  antagonism  toward 
himself  or  his  house.  He  should  try  to  win,  not  by  compelling 
the  purchaser  to  buy  of  him  through  argument  alone,  because 
if  the  buyer  has  begun  to  object  and  criticise,  he  will  proceed 
to  do  everything  he  can  to  uphold  his  position.  But  if  the 
salesman  has  been  clever  enough  to  get  the  buyer's  affirmative 
interest  in  the  article,  even  before  he  shows  it  to  him,  his  sale 
is  almost  made.  For  instance,^  the  wise  salesman  finds  out 
something  the  buyer  wants  that  his  house  carries,  and  then 
interests  his  customer  by  describing  this  article  to  him  before 
showing  it.  The  buyer  comments  "That's  good."  The  foolish 
salesman  hears  the  customer  say,  'T  ordered  so  and  so  last 
week,"  and  makes  that  an  opportunity  to  start  an  argument 
on  "so  and  so"  even  before  showing  his  line.  The  first  sales- 
man has  enlisted  a  friend;  the  second  salesman  has  made  an 
enemy.  All  this  has  been  done  before  the  customer  has  had  a 
single  look  at  the  goods. 

The  wise  salesman  will  remember  that  the  sale  is  made 
in  the  mind  before  it  is  made  in  fact,  and  it  is  his  duty  to 
make  the  first  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the  buyer  so  favor- 
able that  the  buyer  will  regard  him  constantly  as  a  friend,  and 
not  as  an  enemy. 

Every  man  likes  to  say  "I  told  you  so."  The  salesman's 
business  should  be  to  get  the  buyer  in  such  a  frame  of  mind 
that  when  he  sees  the  goods,  he  will  say,  "Yes,  these  are  goods 
I  have  wanted  all  the  time."  The  way  to  get  him  to  do  this 
through  first  impressions  is  to  induce  him,  even  before  he  has 
seen  your  goods,  to  express  an  opinion  favorable  to  some  one 
thing  that  you  are  about  to  show  him. 

The  tremendous  success  of  mail-order  advertising  proves 
the  truth  of  this  point  and  proves  it  absolutely.  The  mail-order 
advertiser  sells  on  the  basis  of  impressions  made  on  the  mind 


Making   a    Sale  99 

of  the  purchaser  before  he  has  seen  the  goods.  The  advertise- 
ment says  in  effect:  "This  is  just  the  thing  you  are  looking 
for.  You  really  want  this,  and  you  may  examine  it  and  return 
it  at  our  expense  if  you  do  not  like  it."  The  customer  thinks 
this  is  perfectly  fair,  and  orders  the  article  on  approval.  In 
doing  this,  he  has  gone  to  some  trouble,  and  in  examining  the 
article,  he  goes  to  more  trouble,  but  he  has  said  to  himself, 
"I  want  this  article  if  it  is  what  I  hope  it  is,"  and  he  will  put 
himself  really  on  the  side  of  the  article  in  the  argument  to 
convince  himself  that  it  is  just  what  he  wants  after  he  has 
gone  to  this  trouble,  whereas  a  salesman  who  has  the  article 
and  shows  it  in  person,  untactfuUy,  may  get  this  same  pur- 
chaser's fighting  blood  up  by  insisting  upon  the  importance 
of  some  detail  that  the  customer  does  not  approve  of,  and 
lose  the  sale. 

The  real  milk  of  the  cocoanut  on  the  point  of  first  impres- 
sions is  that  the  salesman  must  always  make  the  buyer  think 
something  like  the  following: 

"These  goods  must  be  all  right,  because  the  salesman  looks 
prosperous,  clean  and  honest." 

"These  goods  must  be  all  right,  because  the  salesman  has 
asked  me  what  I  want,  and  tells  me  he  has  exactly  that  thing." 

In  short,  the  duty  of  the  salesman  should  be  to  get  the 
customer  in  a  frame  of  mind  in  which  he  expects  to  be  satis- 
fied, and  not  in  the  frame  of  mind  in  which  he  desires  to 
criticise  and  find  fault  in  order  to  support  his  previous 
opinion.  The  salesman  must  make  the  customer  his  friend 
and  a  friend  of  his  goods,  by  creating  favorable  first  impres- 
sions, and  avoid  anything  and  everything  in  the  nature  of  a 
controversy,  unless  he  is  simply  forced  to  fight. 

Salesmen  not  Objects  of  Charity 

It  is  obvious  that  a  buyer  purchases  for  only  one  reason, 
and  that  is  because  he  thinks  the  purchase  will  be  of  benefit 
to  him. 


100  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

It  is  equally  obvious  that  the^  salesman  who  tries  to  induce 
the  customer  to  buy  because  the  salesman  needs  the  money 
will  usually  fail  to  get  his  attention.  The  buyer  will  at  once 
argue  that  if  the  salesman  needs  the  money,  it  must  be  because 
he  is  not  making  money.  If  he  is  not  making  money,  this 
must  be  because  his  goods  are  not  selling  well.  If  his  goods 
are  not  selling  well,  this  must  be  because  people  do  not  think 
they  are  worth  the  money,  and  if  people  do  not  think  they  are 
worth  the  money,  it  is  not  likely  that  they  are.  You  see  the 
train  of  logic  is  absolutely  complete. 

On  this  subject  the  following  paragraph  is  good.  It  is  from 
the  "Manual  of  Instruction,"  issued  to  its  salesmen  by  the  firm 
of  Underwood  &  Underwood,  New  York. 

"Occasionally  some  one  may  suggest  that  he  or  she  would 
like  to  patronize  you  *to  help  you  along,'  or  will  offer  you  an 
order  'just  to  encourage  you.'  Resent  any  remark  of  this  sort, 
but  do  so  in  a  nice  way.  Simply  reply,  'I  beg  of  you  don't 
think  of  that,  for  I  am  doing  a  good  business  and  making 
money.  Nearly  everybody  buys  these  goods.  They  really  have 
wonderful  merit.  Now,  I  want  to  take  your  order  strictly  on 
the  merits  of  the  goods,  and  the  longer  you  have  them  the 
better  you  will  like  them,  for  they  are  exceedingly  fine,'  etc. 
Be  independent  in  this  way,  and  you  will  feel  better.  Besides, 
you  will  sell  more  goods.  When  people  buy  because  they 
recognize  the  merit  of  the  goods  and  want  them,  they  always 
spend  more  money  than  when  they  'take  a  few  to  help  you/ 
in  a  spirit  of  doing  missionary  work.  Josh  Billings  says,  'The 
cent  pieces  wuz  made  on  purpose  for  charity.'  " 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Write  a  fifty  word  reply  to  the  person  who  says :  'T  would 
like  to  buy  to  help  you  out,  but  I  don't  believe  I  will  today." 

Read  carefully  the  chart  given  at  the  top  of  page  101 
before  studying  Lesson  28. 


Making   a    Sale 


mr-^ 


AWAKENING 

INTEREST 
AND  DESIRE 


CHART  TWELVE 

L    Be   certain  your  customer  should 

BE    interested 

2.  Find  out  what  features  are  likely 
TO  appeal  to  him 

3.  Describe  article  attractively  ' 

4.  Be  sure  you  have  no  objectionable 
characteristics 

5.  Ascertain  your  faults  as  salesman, 

AND   amend   them 


LESSON  28 
Awakening  Interest 

You  have  gained  an  audience  with  your  customer,  and  his 
attention.    You  must  now  secure  his  interest  in  your  goods. 

Interest  is  usually  lacking  for  one  of  two  reasons — either 
you  have  not  secured  his  attention,  or  your  argument  or  selling 
talk  proves  a  failure.  If  you  believe  you  have  not  secured  his 
attention,  you  must  secure  it  as  suggested  in  the  preceding 
lesson,  but  for  the  purposes  of  this  lesson,  we  must  assume 
that  you  have  secured  his  attention. 

If  you  believe  your  argument  or  selling  talk  is  failing  to 
arouse  interest,  you  must  investigate  the  cause.  This  will  be 
found  to  be  one  of  the  following : 

1.  Your  proposition  actually  has  no  interest  for  the  cus- 
tomer and  for  good  reasons  can  have  none.  If  this  is  the 
case,  the  sooner  you  find  it  out,  the  better  for  you  both.  A 
salesman,  however,  should  be  very  careful  about  giving  up  on 
this  supposition.  There  is  a  constant  temptation  to  believe  it 
is  impossible  to  interest  a  customer,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  whole  fault  lies  with  the  salesman. 

2.  You  are  not  understanding  your  customer  and  are  not 
grasping  the  things  that  will  be  sure  to  interest  him. 


-102     :  ,     '  '-      Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

3.  You  are  not  describing  your  article  in  an  attractive, 
intelligent  way. 

4.  There  is  something  objectionable  about  you  as  a  sales- 
man. 

In  short,  you  will  plainly  see  that  unless  the  fault  is  of  the 
first  class  mentioned,  it  lies  in  your  failure  to  understand  and 
make,  the  most  of  either  one  of  the  three  factors  of  the  sale ; 
the  article,  the  customer  or  the  salesman. 

How  shall  the  salesman  tell?    Let  us  look  into  this  matter. 

It  is  very  natural  when  the  salesman  is  putting  up  the  best 
talk  he  knows  how,  and  knows  that  his  goods  are  right,  that 
he  should  believe  that  the  fault  lies  with  the  buyer. 

The  fault  is  rarely  with  the  buyer. 

While  it  may  be  true  that  certain  obstinate  or  ignorant 
buyers  will  hurt  their  own  interests  rather  than  purchase  from 
a  certain  salesman,  the  reason  for  this  is  always  to  be  found 
in  some  matter  connected  either  with  the  salesman  or  his  goods 
in  a  direct  or  indirect  way.  If  the  customer,  for  instance,  is 
an  old  fogy,  and  will  not  buy  a  certain  new  style  of  goods,  it 
may  seem  that  it  is  the  prejudice  of  the  customer  that  makes 
the  sale  impossible;  but  the  thing  that  really  makes  the  sale 
impossible  is  that  the  salesman  does  not  know  how  to  over- 
come this  prejudice. 

.  ,  In  short,  it  is  wrong  for  the  salesman  to  blame  his  failure 
upon  the  buyer.  He  cannot  properly  excuse  himself  for  the 
failure  to  make  a  sale  by  merely  saying,  "I  could  have  sold  it 
to  him,  if  he  had  had  any  sense."  The  salesman  must  take  the 
customer  as  he  finds  him. 

If  there  is  anything  wrong  with  the  buyer,  then  let  the 
salesman  find  out  what  it  is  and  so  construct  his  selling  talk 
as  to  obviate  the  difficulty.  Sometimes  the  obstinacy  of  a  cus- 
tomer stands  in  the  way  of  the  salesman's  success  to  such  an 
extent  that  there  seems  to  be  no  other  reason  for  failure,  but 
usually  obstinacy  can  be  overcome  by  skillful  salesmanship. 
Many  men  claim  that  they  can  never  be  moved  in  their  opin- 


Making   a   Sale  103 

ions,  but  the  man  never  lived  of  whom  this  was  absolutely 
true. 

Then  let  the  salesman  dismiss  from  his  mind  the  idea  of 
blaming  his  failure  upon  the  customer.  Let  him  study  the 
customer  carefully,  just  as  he  studies  his  article. 

It  is  not  amiss  for  the  salesman's  conversation,  when  in 
perplexity  over  this  question,  to  be  something  like  this : 

"Mr.  Jones,  I  see  that  I  am  not  interesting  you  in  this 
article  as  much  as  I  should  be  able  to.  I  do  not  blame  you 
for  it,  for  I  realize  as  well  as  you  do  that  you  are  perfectly 
willing  to  buy  whatever  you  think  will  make  you  a  profit  and 
give  satisfaction  to  your  customer.  Since  the  fault  is  not  with 
you,  it  must  be  either  with  me  or  my  goods.  I  am  certain 
that  it  is  not  with  the  goods,  and  it  must  be,  therefore,  that  I 
have  failed  to  describe  these  to  you  in  a  way  that  will  clinch 
the  order.  I  feel  that  I  must  have  omitted  something  that  is 
vital  to  your  interest  in  this  proposition,  and  I  will  greatly 
appreciate  it  if  you  will  tell  me  frankly  what  there  is  about 
my  goods  that  you  do  not  understand  or  do  not  approve  of." 

Frequently,  a  talk  of  this  kind  will  have  the  effect  of 
drawing  out  of  the  customer  the  facts  that  you  need  to  know 
in  order  to  make  your  proposition  interesting  to  him. 

It  is  not  always  advisable  to  make  such  a  talk.  It  depends 
upon  what  kind  of  a  man  you  are  talking  to.  If  you  are 
talking  to  a  nervous,  irascible,  impatient  man,  he  might  reply 
to  you,  'Tf  you  cannot  interest  me  in  your  goods,  it  is  simply 
because  your  goods  are  not  interesting."  In  this  case,  ^such  a 
talk  has  done  you  more  harm  than  good,  but  if  your  man  is  a 
patient,  agreeable  man  who  is  willing  to  discuss  such  matters, 
you  can  do  no  better  than  to  ask  him  plainly  what  he  objects  to. 
.  Of  course,  if  he  tells  you  before  you  ask  him,  as  he  will  in 
most  cases,  you  are  spared  the  difficulty  of  determining  the 
cause  of  your  failure. 

As  a  rule,  however,  lack  of  interest  does  not  depend  upon 
some  little  detail  that  you  have  omitted  from  the  conversa- 


104  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

tion,  but  upon  some  larger  general  condition.  You  have  not 
appealed  to  the  buyer  because  you  have  never  studied  his 
personality,  or  that  of  men  like  him.  You  have  not  made  it 
a  point  to  find  out  what  it  is  that  will  appeal  to  this  particular 
man.  Study  him.  Make  a  note  of  the  experiences  with  him, 
Be  prepared  to  do  battle  with  him  next  time  and  win. 

Arousing  Desire 

The  connection  between  interest  and  the  next  topic,  desire, 
is  very  close  indeed,  because  a  buyer  is  almost  always  inter- 
ested in  an  article  for  the  same  reasons  that  will  make  him 
desire  to  buy  it. 

The  creation  of  desire  is  dependent  upon  your  ability  to 
rouse  the  customer's  imagination  so  that,  as  Atkinson  ex- 
presses it,  "The  prospect  will  begin  to  thmk  of  the  thing  or 
proposition  in  connection  with  himself  "  The  same  rules  apply 
to  quickening  the  desire  that  applied  to  arousing  interest,  but 
there  is  one  very  important  point  that  must  be  considered  here. 
A  man  may  be  immensely  interested  in  what  you  have  to  say, 
and  may  not  desire  the  article  at  all.  You  must  be  sure,  when 
you  attempt  to  awaken  desire,  that  the  interest  he  has  is  an 
interest  along  lines  that  will  cause  him  to  purchase  the  goods, 
and  not  simply  an  interest  in  certain  intellectual  facts  that  you 
are  presenting.  For  instance,  it  would  not  be  much  of  a  task 
for.  a  salesman  to  interest  any  one  of  us  in  an  airship,  but  he 
would  have  considerable  difficulty  in  selling  us  one.  The  point 
is  that  the  salesman  must  be  very  careful  to  arouse  only  that 
kind  of  interest  that  points  directly  to  a  sale.  With  this  kind 
of  interest  as  a  foundation  it  takes  nothing  more  than  the 
mere  suggestion  of  a  purchase  to  arouse  a  man's  desire,  so 
closely  does  desire  follow  on  the  heels  of  interest. 

To  cultivate  desire  for  a  luxury  in  the  mind  of  the  user,  the 
salesman  should  get  his  attention  away  from  money,  and  use 
every  effort  to  make  money  seem  less  important  to  him  than 
comfort. 


Making   a    Sale 


105 


To  cultivate  desire  for  a  line  of  goods,  in  the  mind  of  a 
dealer,  the  salesman  should  center  his  attention  upon  money, 
and  show  him  how  to  make  big  profits  with  his  line. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 
Your  customer  is  Mr.  Peck.     Write  what  you  would  say 
if  you  knew  he  was  not  interested  but  did  not  know  why. 


O 
I—) 

H 
U 
< 

o 
^< 

I— I    1 

-1 
w 


o 
u 


^If  Buyer  has 
followed 
your  line 
of  thought 


CHART  THIRTEEN 

'When  you  are^ 

sure     your 

,^,  main  points 

Choose    your       are  clear 

own     time<when      your 

to  close  customer    is 

thinking    of 

some    point 

in  your  favor 

Close  as  though  confident 

of  sale 
Use  order-blank  and  pencil 

if  desired 

'Watch  him  for  indication '  ^ 
of  time  when  he  is  ready 
to  act 
Defer  to  his  opinion  in  a 
very  marked  way 

REFUSES  TO  ^,  ^  .  .         , 

FOLLOW  yourJ  Show  him  by  every  act 
that  you  are  not  trymg 
to  force  the  sale 


If  Buyer 


LINE  OF 
^THOUGHT 


Use  utmost  tact  in  bring- 
ing him  to  the  point, 
but  bring  hint  to  it  just 
the  same 

Read  the  above  chart  carefully  before  studying  the  next 
lesson. 


Ask  for  order  in 
an  affirmative 
way 

In  case  of  fail- 
ure "patch 
up"  your  sell- 
ing talk 

Ask  for  order 
again 


106  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

LESSON  29 
Compelling  Action 

Little  space  has  been  occupied  with  the  subjects  of  audience, 
attention,  interest  and  desire.  This  does  not  indicate  that  a 
light  importance  should  be  placed  upon  the  salesman's  knowl- 
edge of  these  steps  of  the  sale.  It  indicates  merely  that  these 
.subjects  depend  so  much  upon  the  careful  study  of  what  has 
preceded  in  the  course  that  they  have  taken  on  more  or  less 
the  nature  of  a  summary. 

The  last  step.  How  to  induce  action  on  the  part  of  the 
buyer,  presents  the  most  difficult  problem  for  the  salesman,  and 
calls  for  the  most  careful  study.  At  first  thought,  the  varieties 
of  human  dispositions  with  which  the  salesman  deals  seem  to 
be  too  many  and  divergent  to  be  classified.  But  upon  reflection 
you  will  see  that  prospective  customers  can  be  roughly  divided 
in  two  classes  in  a  way  that  will  greatly  help  the  salesman  in 
Closing  the  Sale.    They  are: 

1.  Those  who  have  been  willing  to  follow  the  salesman's 
line  of  argument  as  he  has  laid  it  out. 

2.  Those  who  have  insisted  upon  following  their  own  lines 
of  thought. 

In  the  first  class,  the  salesman  may  choose  his  own  time 
and  opportunity  to  urge  the  sale,  and  in  some  cases,  this  gives 
him  an  immense  advantage.  His  problem  is  simple.  He 
knows  the  buyer  has  been  following  his  thought  and  is  there- 
fore at  about  the  same  point  in  the  argument  that  he  is 
himself. 

Often,  the  buyer  is  persuaded  to  follow  the  salesman's  line 
of  thought  simply  because  the  salesman  has  talked  to  him  so 
impressively  and  seems  to  be  so  well  posted  that  he  at  once 
feels  disposed  to  allow  the  salesman  to  guide  the  conversation 
and  to  dictate  the  order  in  which  the  various  topics  of  interest 
are  to  be  discussed.    It  follows  naturally  that  many  times  the 


Making   a    Sale  107 

salesman  can  handle  a  customer  who  seems  not  disposed  to 
follow  the  salesman's  line  of  thought,  by  taking  some  means  of 
convincing  him  that  he  knows  what  he  is  talking  about. 

The  appearance,  voice  and  manner  of  the  salesman  afford 
the  easiest  means  to  convey  this  impression. 

If  they  do  not  convey  it,  a  reference  to  some  fundamental 
proposition  regarding  the  goods  may  have  the  desired  effect. 

Any  remark  or  statement  that  will  show  the  buyer  that  the 
salesman  knows  what  he  is  talking  about  regarding  his  product 
will  help  his  cause,  providing  the  remark  is  in  good  taste. 
Boastmg,  however,  is  not  likely  to  have  the  desired  effect. 

In  the  second  class,  the  salesman  does  not  know  with  any 
certainty  what  line  of  thought  the  purchaser  has  been  pursuing, 
and  in  addition  to  the  difficulties  described  in  the  first  case,  he 
faces  an  added  and  greater  difficulty,  namely,  that  of  judging 
what  the  customer  is  thinking  about,  or  trying  to  "drive  at"  in 
his  plan  of  investigation. 

Of  course  the  salesman  has  no  exact  method,  in  either 
ca'se,  of  knowing  what  the  buyer  is  thinking  about  to  discredit 
the  salesman's  argument,  or  question  it  after  he  is  through ; 
but  in  the  first  case  the  salesman  has  the  decided  advantage  of 
knowing  that  up  to  a  certain  point,  at  least,  the  buyer  has 
followed  his  line  of  thought. 

In  case  you  cannot  get  an  expression  from  the  customer 
which  will  show  what  he  thinks  of  your  proposition  it  is 
usually  best  to  proceed  with  your  normal  plan  of  careful, 
attractive  description,  baiting  him  now  and  then  with  a  question 
such  as  "That  is  surely  a  winner.  Isn't  it?"  If  this  fails  to 
draw  him  out,  it  may  be  wise  to  propose  that  he  buy.  In  gen- 
eral, though,  the  salesman  should  be  reasonably  sure  that  the 
customer  desires  the  article,  before  the  proposition  to  buy  is 
put,  for  that  should  always  be  made  confidently  with  the  ex- 
pectation of  the  customer's  buying. 

If  the  customer  has  allowed  the  salesman  to  carry  on  the 
selling  talk  in  his  own  way,  presenting  the  thought  in  the  order 


108  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

he  has  planned,  the  salesman  can  press  the  sale  at  the  exact 
point  planned  from  the  first. 

If  not,  he  has  the  more  difficult  task  of  watching  until  the 
customer  has  asked  all  the  questions  he  desired  or  made  all  the 
statements  he  wished  to  make,  before  urging  the  sale.  In  this 
latter  case,  the  salesman's  plan  should  be  to  find  out  fearlessly 
what  it  is  that  his  customer  is  driving  at  in  his  investigation, 
to  satisfy  him  upon  this  point,  and  then  to  press  the 
sale  when  it  seems  that  the  customer  is  satisfied  upon  the  point 
that  he  has  made  the  chief  issue. 

This  question,  when  to  press  the  sale,  is  really  one  of  the 
most  important  ones  that  the  salesman  must  consider.  Many 
a  bargain  has  been  ruined  because  the  salesman  displayed  too 
keen  an  anxiety  in  pressing  the  sale  before  the  customer  was 
convinced.  On  the  other  hand,  many  sales  have  been  lost 
because  the  salesman  has  not  urged  his  point  soon  enough. 
There  is  in  every  sale  one  time  when  the  customer  is  more 
disposed  to  buy  than  any  other.  A  careful  study  of  the  above 
should  show  the  salesman  how  to  look  for  that  particular  time 
and  recognize  it  when  it  appears. 

In  brief,  it  is  after  the  salesman  has  described  his  goods 
and  proposition  thoroughly,  answered  all  ordinary  objections 
of  the  buyer  and  then  aroused  the  buyer's  enthusiasm  by  spe- 
cial reference  or  re-reference  to  some  one  point  that  seems  to 
be  of  the  most  importance  and  of  the  greatest  attractiveness  to 
the  buyer ;  audit  must  be  before  the  buyer  has  grown  "cold"  on 
the  proposition. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  salesman  must  strike  while 
the  iron  is  hot  and  then  leave  his  customer  to  think  out  all 
objections  afterwards,  and  gradually  work  himself  up  to  anger 
when  it  is  too  late.  The  salesman  must  be  careful  to  avoid  this 
by  thoroughly  satisfying  the  buyer  on  all  points  before  leaving 
him,  or  before  taking  his  order,  but  the  fact  that  is  greatly 
in  the  salesman's  favor  is  that  usually,  after  a  man  has  once 
concluded  a  transaction,  he  is  likely  to  dismiss  it  from  his  mind, 


Making   a    Sale  109 

if  it  be  of  such  nature  that  he  can  reasonably  do  so.  The 
salesman  who  has  thoroughly  covered  the  ground,  and  has 
then  made  his  customer  enthusiastic  before  taking  the  order,  is 
not  likely  to  be  confronted  afterwards  with  the  nightmare  of 
dissatisfied  customers  who  bought  while  under  his  influence 
and  regretted  it  afterwards. 

Here  again  we  see  the  necessity  for  honest  statements  and 
fair  argument.  Such  statements  and  arguments  do  not  become 
unattractive  with  age.  The  customer  thinks  of  them  with 
satisfaction  later 

He  is  dissatisfied  when  he  realizes  that  the  salesman  has 
deceived  him  either  by  lying  directly  or  by  inference  or  by  the 
omission  of  some  important  fact.  He  is  then  angry  and  has  a 
right  to  be. 

As  to  how  to  press  the  sale,  the  same  classification  of  buyers 
proves  valuable.  Buyers  of  either  class  may  prove  absolutely 
independent  in  their  desire  to  come  to  a  decision  for  themselves, 
without  undue  influence,  but  those  of  the  first  class  are  likely  to 
allow  the  salesman  the  same  privilege  of  urging  his  sale  at  his 
own  time  as  they  did  in  allowing  him  to  present  his  argument 
in  his  own  fashion  Buyers  of  the  second  class  are  not  at  all 
likely  to  do  this  Having  pursued  their  investigations  in  their 
own  way,  and  asked  questions  at  their  own  time,  they  are 
likely  to  demand  the  privilege  of  themselves  determining  when 
the  final  step  in  the  proceedings  shall  be  taken. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  salesman  should  permit  him- 
self, in  the  case  of  men  of  the  second  class,  to  be  bullied  or 
scared  away  from  the  discussion  of  all  the  important  points 
in  his  proposition,  nor  that  he  should  allow  himself  to  be 
thwarted  in  his  plan  of  urging  a  sale  at  the  conclusion  of  his 
argument;  but  that  he  must,  in  deference  to  his  customer's 
wishes,  plan  his  argument  and  select  his  method  and  time  of 
urging  the  sale  to  conform  entirely  to  the  buyer's  desires,  if  it  is 
possible  for  him  to  do  so  without  loss  of  business. 

This  requirement  of  the  salesman  calls  for  the  exercise  of 


110  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

that  all-important  quality,  tact.  The  salesman  must  know 
when  to  listen  and  when  to  speak;  when  to  answer  and  when 
to  ask;  when  to  describe  and  when  to  urge. 

The  careful  student  of  this  course  will  increase  the  amount 
of  his  tact  by  study.  Tact  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  the 
application  of  common  sense  rules  to  conversation  and  conduct. 
It  is  that  ready  power  of  appreciation,  and  of  doing  what  is 
required  by  circumstances,  that  can  be  acquired  only  by  the 
careful  study  of  circumstances  and  of  people. 

Like  every  other  element  of  personality,  tact  is  not  a  quality 
that  is  merely  born  in  people.  There  are  very  few  attributes 
of  our  being  that  yield  more  readily  to  study  and  cultivation 
than  tact.  Tactfulness  is  inspired  and  made  possible  by  the 
deference  and  respect  which  we  have  for  the  opinions  and 
feelings  of  others.  How,  then,  is  the  salesman  to  acquire  it 
without  studying  the  characteristics  of  buyers?  And  how  is 
he  to  avoid  acquiring  it  if  he  does  study  the  characteristics  of 
buyers  with  the  aim  of  turning  these  characteristics  to  his 
own  profit  when  making  the  sale  ? 

Tact  is  ordinarily  characterized  by  deference  to  the  opinions 
of  others,  but  there  are  times  when  it  is  characterized  by  the 
exact  opposite  of  this.  There  are  customers,  just  as  there  are 
people  in  all  grades  of  life,  who  desire  to  be  bullied,  who  will 
not  buy  unless  they  are  bullied. 

In  such  a  case,  it  is  an  evidence  of  tact  for  the  salesman  to 
be  a  bully. 

But  this  case  is  not  found  once  in  a  thousand  times.  A 
man  who  is  so  weak  by  nature  that  he  has  to  be  literally  forced 
into  signing  an  order  is  not  a  man  who  is  likely  to  be  a  buyer 
of  anything  very  long.  Yet  such  men  do  exist,  and  when  the 
salesman  finds  one,  it  is  a  shame  to  disappoint  him. 

There  are  other  times  when  tact  compels  the  salesman  to 
fight,  not  physically,  of  course,  but  intellectually.  Suppose 
you  are  dealing  with  a  bully,  a  man  who  proposes  to  brow-beat 
you  until  he  drives  you  out  of  his  store  without  a  sale.     He 


Making    a    Sale  111 

abuses  your  house  unjustly ;  he  abuses  your  goods  without 
reason. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  answer  this  man,  and  that  is  to  call 
him  sharply  to  time. 

Do  not  call  him  names  or  engage  in  any  petty  quarrel,  but 
tell  him  vigorously  and  forcibly  that  what  he  has  said  is  not 
true.  Tell  him  why  it  is  not  true.  Make  no  compromise  with 
him, — not  a  single  inch, — and  nine  times  out  of  ten  such  a  man 
will  stop  bullying  you.  Then  you  can  again  adopt  a  pleasant  and 
conciliatory  attitude  and  be  a  thousand  times  nearer  to  a  sale 
than  you  ever  would  have  been  had  you  allowed  him  to  abuse 
you  and  your  house  and  your  goods  without  standing  up  like  a 
man  and  giving  him  better  than  you  received. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 
Write  what  you  would  say  if  a  customer  said,  *T  need  the 
goods,  and  I  believe  your  goods  are  all  right,  but  I  will  think  it 
over  and  let  you  know  the  next  time  you  come  around." 


LESSON  30 
How  Long  to  Talk 

The  question  of  how  long  to  talk  is  a  very  important  one, 
for  costly  mistakes  are  made  both  by  those  who  talk  too  long 
and  by  those  who  say  too  little.  There  are  some  articles,  such 
as  newspapers  sold  on  the  street,  that  do  not  require  any  more 
description  than  the  name  of  the  article  and  two  or  three  words 
about  its  most  striking  or  important  features.  But  aside  from 
goods  of  this  class,  it  is  as  serious  an  error  to  attempt  to  make 
a  sale  without  sufficient  description  of  your  article  and  its 
advantages,  as  it  is  to  bore  your  customer  with  too  much  talk. 

The  following  rules  may  be  adopted  to  help  you  to  judge 
how  long  to  talk  before  asking  your  customer  for  the  order. 


112  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

1.  Be  sure  your  customer  understands  the  vital  points 
about  your  goods. 

2.  Be  sure  your  proposition  is  clearly  outlined  in  his 
mind. 

3.  Be  sure  you  have  given  answers  to  his  objections  that 
are  clear  explanations  of  the  points  he  has  raised. 

4.  Be  sure  the  moment  selected  for  the  urging  of  the  sale 
is  one  in  which  he  is  giving  consideration  to  the  advantages 
of  your  proposition  and  not  to  its  disadvantages. 

5.  Be  especially  careful  to  watch  your  customer  closely 
enough  to  give  him  a  chance  to  say  he  will  buy,  if  he  wants  to 
do  so. 

On  the  fourth  point,  William  Walker  Atkinson  says,  "The 
strongest  motive  at  the  moment,  wins  the  choice.  This  strong- 
est motive  may  be  of  reason  or  feeling;  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious; but  strongest  at  that  moment  it  must  be,  or  it  would 
not  win." 

Remember  in  connection  with  this  entire  matter,  that  it  is 
not  necessary  for  you  to  give  a  complete  encyclopedic  descrip- 
tion of  your  article.  You  are  not  required  to  defend  your  goods 
against  an  objection  that  has  never  been  raised,  and  it  is  very 
poor  policy  to  do  so.  Many  a  sale  has  been  lost  because  a 
salesman  did  not  know  how  to  let  good  enough  alone,  and 
supposed  it  was  up  to  him  to  drag  into  the  selling  talk  every 
objection  to  his  goods  he  had  ever  heard  made.  It  may  be  a 
pleasure  to  a  garrulous  salesman  to  put  up  a  "straw-man"  and 
then  knock  him  down  with  great  vigor,  but  it  is  not  good 
sense. 

This  does  not  mean  that  it  is  ever  proper  to  evade  any 
honest  objections  that  are  or  could  be  raised  to  your  goods. 
These  should  be  squarely  met  at  all  times.  But  do  not  waste 
time  or  thought-power  by  dragging  such  objections  in  by  the 
heels.  Remember  that  successful  sales  are  made  not  by  dis- 
cussing objections,  but  by  holding  forth  advantages.  Never 
introduce  an  objection  yourself  unless  you  feel  positive  that 


Making   a    Sale  113 

such  an  objection  exists  in  your  customer's  mind  and  he  does 
not  state  it.  Then  you  should  raise  it  skillfully.  In  general, 
do  not  say  "You  may  think  the  shape  of  this  article  is  a  dis- 
advantage," but  rather  "You  may  not  think  its  shape  is  any 
more  advantageous  than  others"  and  then  proceed  to  show  that 
it  is  advantageous.  Be  careful  not  to  state  there  is  an  actual 
objection  in  his  mind,  but  that  there  is  a  possibility  of  his  feel- 
ing that  the  point  may  not  be  a  point  of  real  superiority. 
Then  proceed  to  show  how  actual  use  will  demonstrate  its 
tremendous  advantage.  Answer  this  point  thoroughly  if  you 
bring  it  up,  but  do  not  assume  for  a  moment  that  the  customer 
is  opposed  to  your  argument. 

The  Order-Blank 

When  order-book  and  pencil  are  necessary  to  the  sale,  the 
salesman  has  an  advantage  and  a  disadvantage  that  he  would 
not  have  otherwise.  The  advantage  is  that  he  has  a  signature 
to  get,  a  definite  act  to  be  performed,  that  differs  in  its  con- 
clusiveness from  that  of  securing  a  promise  in  words  only. 
Often  the  necessity  of  signing  an  order  centers  the  buyer's 
mind  on  the  question  before  him- in  a  far  more  positive  way 
than  if  no  such  order-blanks  were  presented  for  consideration. 
The  disadvantage  arises  from  the  very  same  fact.  Some  people 
object  to  signing  orders. 

Usually,  with  a  well-known  proposition  and  a  resolute  cus- 
tomer, the  order-blank  expedites  matters.  With  an  unknown 
house  or  salesman,  and  a  weak  buyer,  it  is  often  an  obstacle. 
The  order-blank,  however,  is  necessary  for  reasons  not  con- 
nected with  selling,  but  with  delivery.    It  prevents  mistakes. 

The  Crucial  Moment 

Many  a  salesman  conducts  his  sale  exactly  right,  up  to  the 
point  of  taking  the  order ;  but  there  he  fails. 

A  few  ideas  regarding  the  closing  of  a  sale  should  be 
enumerated  here.     Some  of  them  have  already  been  mentioned. 


114  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

1.  Be  careful  to  select  the  right  time. 

2.  Do  not  have  the  attitude  of  asking  a  favor,  but  rather 
of  presenting  an  opportunity. 

3.  Ask  for  the  order  in  an  affirmative  way. 

4.  Learn  to  tell  the  difference  between  an  ordinary  "no" 
and  a  final  "no." 

The  third  point  needs  special  comment.  It  is  absurd  for  a 
salesman  to  ask  for  an  order  in  either  a  tone  or  words  that 
indicate  that  he  does  not  expect  to  get  it.  The  words  "I  don't 
suppose  you  would  want  any  of  these  today,  would  you  ?"  have 
never  yet  made  a  sale,  and  it  is  very  seldom  that  they  have 
ever  been  used  without  ruining  the.  chances  for  a  sale.  It  is  as 
though  one  were  to  say  to  his  friend,  "Well,  you  won't  come 
up  to  dinner  tonight,  will  you  ?"  Such  a  man  would  be  greatly 
surprised  if  his  friend  should  say,  "Yes,  I  will."  The  same 
applies  to  the  salesman. 

We  quote  again  from  the  manual  of  instructions  issued  by 
Underwood  &  Underwood  of  New  York. 

"When  you  ask  for  the  order  in  an  affirmative  way  (and 
the  order  should  never  be  asked  for  any  other  than  an  affirma- 
tive and  expectant  way),  it  is  very  effective  to  take  your  order 
book  and  pencil  from  your  pocket  as  you  say :  'What  is  your 
name  ?'  Expect  the  order  and  you  will  frequently  get  it  without 
delay." 

This  firm  instructs  its  salesmen  to  say:  "Well,  I'll  put 
you  down  for  an  order,  shall  I  not?"  Their  salesmen  are 
instructed  throughout  their  entire  manual  to  pay  special  atten- 
tion to  this  one  point ;  namely,  the  salesman  should  ask  for  an 
order  as  though  he  expected  to  get  it.  At  the  same  time  one 
must  be  careful  to  do  or  say  nothing  that  seems  too  forward. 

Do  not  forget  the  importance,  in  many  kinds  of  selling,  of 
using  prominent  names  to  influence  others  to  put  their  names 
down  also.  In  wholesale  salesmanship,  this  would  mean  the 
names  of  great  retail  dealers  using  your  line.  In  retail  sales- 
manship and  in  canvassing,  it  would  mean  the  names  of  promi- 


Making    a    Sale  115 

nent  people  of  the  city  who  were  using  or  had  subscribed  to 
what  you  desired  to  sell. 

"Patching  up"  a  Selling  Talk 

Suppose  the  salesman  has  finished  his  selling  talk  and  has 
failed  to  take  the  order,  and  yet  feels  that  he  has  not  lost 
altogether.  The  question  is  how  to  "patch  up"  or  amend  his 
selling  talk.  Something  has  been  wrong.  He  must  decide 
which  of  the  following  objections  has  prevented,  him  from 
making  the  sale: 

1.  He  has  not  dwelt  long  enough  on  the  argument  that 
appealed  most  when  used  previously.  The  salesman  should 
watch  throughout  his  entire  talk  for  the  one  thing  that  seems 
to  make  appeal  most  strongly  to  the  buyer  and  use  it  in  the 
crucial  moment  just  before  asking  for  the  order. 

2.  Perhaps  the  salesman  has  not  shown  his  goods  right 
or  has  not  shown  enough  of  his  line.  In  this  case,  he  can 
frequently  get  back  to  this  work  very  gracefully  and  begin 
again. 

3.  Perhaps  the  salesman  has  forgotten  some  important 
point  connected  with  the  sale,  as  the  importance  of  the  popu- 
larity of  his  goods,  the  profit  that  may  be  made  on  them,  or 
something  of  that  kind.  He  should  search  his  memory  for 
what  it  is  that  has  been  forgotten  and  produce  it. 

4.  Perhaps  an  objection  has  been  made  to  his  goods  that  he 
has  not  thoroughly  satisfied  the  customer  upon.  There  should 
be  no  question  in  the  mind  of  the  buyer  but  that  his  objection 
has  been  fully  met. 

5.  When  all  other  methods  fail,  the  salesman  still  has  the 
privilege  of  asking  his  customer  frankly,  "What  is  the  matter  ?" 
He  should  do  this,  when  necessary,  without  backwardness. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  in  "patching"  a  sel- 
ling talk,  the  salesman  must  remember  exactly  where  it  was 
that  he  failed.  He  should  then  go  back  to  that  point,  and  pro- 
ceed to  work  up  the  sale  from  that  point  in  the  regular  order 


116  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

of  presentation : — Audience,  Attention,  Interest,  Desire,  Action. 
If  the  salesman  discovers  that  he  has  not  the  buyer's  attention, 
let  him  revert  to  that  step  in  the  progress  of  the  sale  and 
work  him  up  through  the  successive  stages  of  interest,  desire 
and  action. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

(Fifty  to  Seventy-five  Words.) 

Mr.  Thompson  objects  to  signing  his  name  to  your  order- 
blank. 

Explain  to  Mr.  Thompson  why  you  must  get  him  to  sign 
your  order-blank  and  why  it  is  to  his  advantage  to  do  so. 


LESSON  31 

We  are  now  ready  for  the  application  of  what  we  have 
studied  about  the  process  of  the  sale,  in  a  series  of  five  lessons. 

Come  to  class  prepared  with  a  fifty  word  talk  upon  the  topic 
assigned.  Either  read  what  you  have  written,  or  recite  with- 
out reading,  but  the  extemporaneous  talk  is  preferred. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Give  a  short  talk  to  secure  an  audience  with  the  buyer, 
Mr.  Safford.  In  this  and  the  four  following  lessons,  imagine 
any  circumstances  you  desire,  and  select  any  article  about 
which  to  talk  from  the  list  given  in  Lesson  9.  Do  not  talk 
without  a  definite  article  to  sell  and  a  definite  set  of  circum- 
stances in  mind. 


LESSON  32 

Give  a  short  talk  to  secure  attention. 


Making   a    Sale 


117 


LESSON  33 

Give  a  short  talk  to  awaken  the  buyer's  interest. 

LESSON  34 

Give  a  short  talk  to  arouse  desire. 

LESSON  35 

Give  a  short  talk  to  induce  action. 


SUPPLEMENTAL 
REQUIREMENTS 


CHART  FOURTEEN 


'1.  Be  accurate  in  taking  order 

2.  do  not  let  customer  overload 

3.  Help  customer  sell  goods 

4.  See   that  your   house   handles 

ORDER   right 

5.  Study  your  failures 

6.  Be  careful  with  expense  account 

7.  Take  good  care  of  your  samples 

8.  Leave   when  you   have  secured 
the  order 


Read  the  above  chart  carefully  before  studying  the  next 
lesson. 


118  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

LESSON  36 
Supplemental  Requirements 

We  now  come  to  the  question  of  supplemental  require- 
ments. By  this  is  meant  requirements  not  directly  connected 
with  the  sale  itself. 

The  best  interests  of  the  customer  must  be  served  zealously, 
both  at  the  time  of  taking  the  order,  and  afterwards.  The 
best  interests  of  the  house  must  be  jealously  guarded  in  the 
making  of  specific  selling  contracts,  in  the  diligent  use  of  the 
firm's  time,  and  in  the  economical  handling  of  the  firm's 
money.  The  best  interests  of  the  salesman  himself  also  de- 
mand careful  observance  of  certain  supplemental  requirements. 
Eight  of  these  requirements  are  mentioned  in  this  lesson.  The 
alert  student  will  doubtless  think  of  many  more. 

Send  the  Order  to  the  House  Accurately  and  Promptly 

The  student  will  remember  that  accuracy  is  the  only  re- 
quirement of  the  simplest  class  of  sale.  It  is  equally  a  require- 
ment of  more  difficult  sales,  for  the  man  who  makes  a  mistake 
in  an  order  loses  business  by  his  carelessness. 

Do  Not  Let  the  Customer  Overstock 

It  is  necessary  for  the  salesman  to  see  that  the  customer 
buys  right;  if  the  customer  has  ordered  too  much  it  is  the 
salesman's  duty  to  so  inform  him  in  order  that  he  will  not  fail 
or  sustain  an  injury  in  business.  The  salesman  who  refuses  to 
see  or  consider  this  phase  of  selling  is  working  not  only  against 
his  customer's  interest,  which  is  dishonest,  but  against  his  own 
interest.  If  he  stocks  a  customer  with  more  goods  than  the 
customer  can  sell  and  the  customer  therefore  does  not  sell  all  he 
has,  the  natural  inference  will  be  that  the  article  is  not  as  good 
a  seller  as  it  should  be.  Another  natural  inference  will  be  that 
the  salesman  has  "worked"  the  customer,  and  this  will  not 


Making   a    Sale  119 

augur  well  for  the  next  year's  business.  Many  extraordinarily 
successful  salesmen  state,  not  boastfully  but  as  a  mere  every- 
day matter  of  fact,  that  it  is  frequently  quite  important  for 
them  to  use  every  energy  to  keep  the  customer  from  buying  as 
much  as  he  would  like  to  of  certain  articles,  because  they  know 
if  he  does  this  in  his  enthusiasm  he  will  probably  lose  money 
on  the  line,  and  this  will  injure  their  chances  of  doing  perma- 
nent business  with  him. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  that  this  naturally  in- 
volves a  study  of  the  customer's  business  to  a  limited  extent. 
The  skilled  salesman  should  know  enough  about  his  customer's 
business  to  prevent  him  from  making  an  error  either  in  the 
kind  or  the  amount  of  goods  that  he  advises  his  customer  to 
buy.  This  cannot  be  done  without  a  study  of  the  individual 
customer's  requirements. 

The  young  salesman  should  be  particularly  careful,  how- 
ever, regarding  advice  to  a  customer  on  such  matters  as  over- 
loading. Large  orders  may  stagger  the  young  salesman  when 
the  buyer  knows  he  can  use  the  goods.  In  most  cases  the 
buyer  will  resent  the  reflection  upon  his  judgment  if -sug- 
gestions in  this  line  are  offered  in  the  form  of  advice.  Tact 
in  getting  at  his  requirements  is  necessary.  Sometimes  it  is 
most  easily  arrived  at  by  getting  him  to  give  you  an  estimate 
of  his  probable  average  consumption  per  month,  suggesting 
that  if  he  can  use  inore  you  might  be  able  to  offer  a  slight 
advantage  in  price  or  discount,  but  that  you  would  want  to 
make  sure  that  he  could  use  the  quantity.  If  possible  you 
should  determine  this  beforehand  and  quote  prices  on  the  quan- 
tities he  ought  to  buy. 

Help  Your  Customer  Sell  the  Goods 

This  next  step  in  the  proceeding  is  perfectly  logical.     The 
*  salesman  must  inform  his  customer  how  best  to  handle,  adver- 
tise, display,  and  sell  the  goods.    All  this  advice  should  be  given 
in  a  modest  way  of  course,  and  never  with  any  idea  of  appear- 


120  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

ing  to  know  more  than  the  customer,  but  it  must  be  given  in 
justice  both  to  the  goods  and  to  the  purchaser.  If  you,  as  a 
salesman,  know  of  a  certain  thing  that  can  be  done  to  increase 
the  customer's  sales  twenty-five  or  fifty  per  cent,  you  certainly 
can  do  nothing  more  wise  than  to  inform  him  how  this  can  be 
done.  If  he  disagrees  with  you,  it  is  not  a  matter  that  you 
can  debate  with  him,  because  he  is  the  final  judge ;  but  if  you 
fairly  bristle  with  ideas,  some  of  them  will  get  into  the  cus- 
tomer's mind,  and  an  increased  sale  of  your  goods  will  be  the 
direct  or  indirect  result. 

See  That  Your  House  Handles  Your  Customer's  Goods 
to  Their  Advantage 

You  must  study  your  house's  methods  of  manufacture  and 
sale  of  goods  so  that  no  detail  will  escape  you  upon  which  you 
ought  to  be  informed.  But  you  should  especially  note  the  house's 
methods  of  handling  the  goods  shipped  to  your  own  customers. 
You  must  look  to  the  interests  of  your  customers  in  the  packing 
and  handling  of  the  goods.  It  is  not  the  salesman's  business  to 
make  himself  obnoxious  to  his  employer,  but  it  is  distinctly 
his  business  to  see  that  the  customer  is  treated  as  he  has  been 
promised.  If  there  are  ways  in  which  the  house  could  improve 
its  handling  of  these  goods,  the  salesman  should  let  this  be 
known  to  those  in  charge. 

It  often  counts  very  strongly  for  you  if  you  are  able  to  say 
to  your  customer  truthfully,  "I  was  in  the  house  when  this 
order  was  being  put  up,  and  I  especially  watched  the  selection 
of  goods  that  we  sent  in  your  order  number  so-and-so  and 
your  order  number  so-and-so."  Of  course  some  houses  do  not 
permit  their  salesmen  to  do  this,  and  you  have  to  be  governed 
by  the  rules  established  by  your  employer,  but  often  you  can 
see  to  it  that  your  customer's  order  gets  some  little  care 
in  its  arrangement  and  packing,  or  even  in  the  selection  of  the 
goods,  which  it  might  not  have  had  otherwise. 


Making   a    Sale  121 

Study  Your  Failures 

Even  when  you  fail  to  take  an  order,  you  still  have  a  duty 
to  perform.  It  is  your  business  to  study  your  failure  and 
analyze  it,  not  in  a  discouraged  way,  but  in  a  fair  and  open- 
minded  fashion,  and  tell  yourself  why  you  failed.  This  will 
be  of  great  help  to  you  in  making  future  sales. 

One  duty  of  the  salesman  that  is  frequently  found  profit- 
able is  that  of  keeping  some  kind  of  a  record  of  his  visit  to  the 
customer,  and  what  was  said.  Many  salesmen  keep  a  pocket 
card  file  and  others  keep  a  pocket  memorandum  book  in  which 
the  name  of  the  customer,  his  address,  the  date  of  the  visit  and 
other  facts  are  recorded,  including  a  record  of  what  was  said 
at  the  time.  Suppose  you  can  say  to  a  customer,  "Mr.  Jones, 
when  I  was  here  in  June  you  told  me  that  you  had  a  large 
supply  of  Smith's  neckties,  and  I  have  called  to  see  if  you 
have  sold  these  and  are  now  in  the  market  for  our  goods." 
You  have  scored  a  great  point  right  there.  Your  customer 
does  not  know,  perhaps,  that  you  keep  a  written  memorandum 
of  this,  but  he  is  pleased  to  observe  that  you  have  his  particular 
case  in  mind,  and  that  you  know  exactly  what  the  situation  is. 
It  is  likely  to  be  of  immense  value  to  you  in  beginning  your 
second  attempt  to  sell  him.  "Many  times,"  said  a  Baker- 
Vawter  salesman,  "I  have  been  interested  to  see  how  delighted 
and  pleased  customers  are  that  I  should  remember  their  names, 
though  perhaps  they  have  forgotten  mine  altogether.  It  gives 
me  credit  for  having  paid  close  attention  to  them,  and  for 
having  noticed  them  very  carefully,  and  I  presume  it  compli- 
ments them  after  a  fashion ;  yet  I  have  a  very  poor  memory, 
and  the  credit  is  entirely  due  to  my  habit  of  keeping  a  memo- 
randum of  the  names  of  those  to  whom  I  talk  and  the  remarks 
that  they  made  that  were  significant." 

The  Expense  Account 

A  word  must  be  said  here  also  on  the  matter  of  the  expense 
account.    This  is  something  that  there  can  be  no  fixed  rule  for. 


122  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

Some  salesmen  have  no  expense  items  whatever  allowed  by  the 
house.  Others  are  allowed  to  spend  practically  any  amount 
that  they  want  to  spend.  There  are  certain  rules,  however, 
that  will  apply  in  any  case. 

The  first  of  these  rules  is  that  you  must  never  spend  any 
money  for  the  business  that  does  not  bring  results  in  the  busi- 
ness. Any  employer  would  rather  keep  a  dollar  than  have  his 
salesman  spend  it,  if  it  brings  nothing  in.  Second,  you  must 
hew  to  the  line  established  by  your  employer  absolutely  in  this 
matter.  Your  expense  account  is  vital  to  him,  and  since  he  is 
paying  the  money  rather  than  you,  you  must  not  violate  his 
orders  regarding  the  expense  account.  Have  a  thorough  un- 
derstanding as  to  what  items  shall  be  on  the  expense  account. 
Your  employer  will  appreciate  it  if  you  can  keep  these  iteras 
low. 

There  are  certain  lines  of  business  in  which  it  is  necessary 
for  the  salesman  to  have  the  best  there  is  in  the  line  of  hotel 
and  railroad  accommodations.  Perhaps  his  class  of  customers 
is  such  that  they  would  not  do  business  with  him  otherwise. 
There  are  other  lines  where  it  makes  no  difference  what  hotel 
one  stays  at  or  whether  he  rode  or  walked  from  the  last  town. 

There  is  just  one  thing  necessary  in  conclusion.  The 
salesman  should  remember  that  his  employer  has  the  same 
regard  for  a  dollar  that  he  has,  and  unless  it  is  distinctly  under- 
stood that  he  is  to  spend  money  in  certain  unusual  ways,  he 
ought  not  to  be  more  extravagant  with  his  employer's  money 
.than  with  his  own ;  and  he  should  also  remember  that  the 
thing  that  justifies  the  expense  account  is  the  list  of  sales,  for 
so  long  as  the  list  of  sales  is  good,  the  expense  account  will  not 
be  a  matter  of  as  great  concern  as  it  would  be  otherwise. 

Much  misunderstanding  about  the  expense  account  is  due 
to  the  boastful  lying  that  is  prevalent  among  traveling  men  of 
a  certain  class.  Just  as  young  boys  are  led  into  wickedness  by 
keeping  company  with  boys  two  or  three  years  older  who  talk 
about  having  done  lots  of  mean,  low-down  things  that  they 


Making   a    Sale  123 

really  never  had  either  the  courage  or  the  opportunity  to  do,  so 
young  salesmen  are  frequently  lured  into  extravagance  with 
''the  company's  money"  through  false  statements  made  by  those 
who  boast  that  their  company  encourages  them  to  use  fine 
hotels,  expensive  cafes,  automobiles,  high  priced  cigars,  wine- 
suppers,  and  the  like,  when  the  probabilities  are  that  it  is  not 
true  at  all. 

Fortunately  for  salesmen  as  a  class,  there  are  not  many  such 
men  in  the  business;  but  unfortunately,  the  men  of  that  kind 
who  are  in  it  are  the  ones  who  are  most  frequently  heard  in 
smoking  cars,  hotel  lobbies,  etc.,  when  questions  of  this  kind 
come  up  for  discussion. 

Such  fellows  are  just  as  likely  as  not,  when  they  reach  the 
next  town,  to  claim  that  their  firms  are  stingy,  if  they  happen 
to  strike  a  vein  of  conversation  that  renders  the  remark 
appropriate. 

Care  of  Samples 

Certainly  there  is  nothing  that  will  be  more  damaging  to  a 
man's  business  than  to  be  careless  with  his  samples.  When 
they  begin  to  look  dirty  and  unattractive  the  buyer  will  not  be 
pleased  with  them.  This  seems  so  evident  that  it  hardly  needs 
comment,  yet  it  should  be  stated  here  that  many  a  salesman 
fails  absolutely  without  knowing  why  he  fails,  and  the  reason 
is  that  the  samples  are  unattractive.  Furthermore,  when  a 
salesman  has  a  large  line  of  goods,  he  must  have  them  so  that 
he  can  readily  place  his  hands  upon  any  article  wanted,  or  he 
will  often  lose  a  sale  and  will  always  leave  a  bad  impression 
in  the  mind  of  the  customer.  Business  men  have  no  time  to 
wait  while  the  salesman  hunts  through  his  samples  for  a  lost 
article.  The  buyer's  attention  may  be  lost — and  with  it,  the 
sale. 

The  care  of  samples  becomes  especially  important  when  the 
samples  are  especially  made  up  in  advance  and  the  stock  is  not 
yet  ready  for  delivery.  In  this  case,  it  is  frequently  impossible 
for  a  good  sample  to  be  secured  to  replace  a  damaged  one. 


124  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

Again,  careful  and  systematic  handling  of  samples  makes  it 
easier  for  the  salesman  to  find  what  he  wants  and  he  can  do  his 
work  better  if  he  is  working  with  samples  that  are  perfect  in 
appearance  and  so  laid  out  that  he  can  find  them  without  worry 
or  loss  of  energy. 

Leave  When  You  Have  the  Order  ' 

Many  a  sale  has  been  canceled  because  the  salesman  ''stayed 
around  for  a  friendly  chat"  and  thus  gave  the  customer  a 
chance  to  change  his  mind.  Many  an  order  has  been  altered 
or  cut  down  on  account  of  the  same  thing.  Even  when  this 
has  not  happened,  many  a  buyer  has  seized  upon  the  oppor- 
tunity thus  presented  to  ask  for  further  concessions. 

When  you  have  what  you  care  for,  leave  the  town,  or  at 
least  go  where  your  customer  will  not  see  you  and  be  tempted 
to  reconsider  his  order. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Draw  a  diagram  of  a  card  such  as  you  would  carry  in  your 
pocket  to  note  calls  on  your  trade  and  their  results.  In 
doing  this,  select  one  of  the  lines  of  business  mentioned  in 
Lesson  9. 


PART  III 
Salesmanship  by  Correspondence 

LESSON  37 

Points  of  Similarity  Between  Personal  Salesmanship 
and  Salesmanship  by  Correspondence 

The  remainder  of  this  course  will  be  devoted  to  Sales- 
manship by  Correspondence.  It  will  be  the  plan  during  the 
remaining  lessons  to  show  a  distinct  analogy  between  sales- 
manship in  person  and  salesmanship  by  correspondence;  that 
is,  to  show  that  these  resemble  each  other  in  almost  every  par- 
ticular. What  has  been  learned  about  salesmanship  in  person 
will  prove  of  equal  value  to  the  student  of  salesmanship  by 
correspondence. 

We  found  that  there  were  three  kinds  of  salesmen,  whole- 
sale salesmen,  retail  salesmen  and  canvassers.  This  same 
division  can  be  made  in  correspondence ;  that  is,  some  letters 
solicit  wholesale  business,  others  solicit  the  orders  and  attend 
to  the  wants  of  retail  customers,  while  letters  of  the  third  class 
may  be  described  as  canvassing  letters  that  go  broadcast  to 
large  numbers  of  people. 

A  better  division  of  letters,  however,  is  as  follows : 

1.  General  or  form  letters. 

2.  Personal  or  special  letters. 

Wholesale,  retail,  and  canvassing  letters  all  fall  naturally 
into  these  two  classes.  The  general  principles  that  we  learned 
regarding  wholesale,  retail  and  canvassing  sales  will  in  the 
main  hold  good  in  correspondence  except  as  modified  by  this 
later  division  into  general  and  personal  letters. 

125 


126  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

The  writing  of  a  general  or  form  letter  requires  an  entirely 
different  sort  of  ability  from  the  writing  of  a  personal  or 
special  letter.    We  will  therefore  consider  the  two  separately. 

In  most  cases  the  general  or  form  letter  precedes  the  per- 
sonal because  the  personal  letter  is  usually  written  in  answer 
to  inquiries  received  from  form  letters.  We  will  therefore  con- 
sider the  general  letter  first. 

A  general  letter  must  contain  a  description  of  the  article 
and  a  selling  talk  such  as  is  likely  to  appeal  to  the  majority  of 
the  people  to  whom  it  is  sent.  It  is  of  vital  importance  in  this 
case  that  the  salesman  who  writes  the  letter  should  have  a 
good  general  idea  of  the  class  of  people  to  whom  he  is  writing. 
To  write  a  letter  full  of  high-sounding  phrases  while  attempt- 
ing to  sell  a  cheap  article  to  an  uneducated  class  of  people 
would  be  folly,  as  it  would  be  to  write  a  careless,  poorly-spelled 
letter  to  a  list  of  well-educated,  aristocratic  customers. 

In  constructing  a  general  letter,  every  word  must  be  written 
with  the  idea  of  appealing  to  the  majority  of  the  interested 
people  who  will  receive  it.  There  are  always  some  who  will  not 
or  cannot  be  interested  in  your  proposition,  and  these  need 
not  be  considered.  It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rul^  in 
the  writing  of  general  form  letters  that  one  may  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  reader  is  interested  in  his  proposition,  because 
if  one  cannot  possibly  be  interested,  he  may  as  well  be  ignored. 
For  instance,  suppose  your  article  is  something  for  the  family, 
and  the  letter  is  addressed  to  the  man  of  the  house.  It  will 
no  doubt  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  few  men  who  have  no  fami- 
lies. It  would  be  a  useless  waste  of  energy  and  paper  to 
insert  a  paragraph  explaining  that  if  the  reader  is  not  the  head 
of  a  family  he  need  pay  no  attention  to  the  letter.  Ignore  him 
and  assume  that  every  reader  is  a  possible  purchaser. 

Let  this  same  "rule  of  the  majority"  guide  you  in  the  lan- 
guage you  use  in  your  letter.  Frame  it  so  as  to  make  it  at- 
tractive to  the  majority  of  possible  buyers  to  whom  it  will  be 
sent. 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  127 

This  rule  has  some  very  notable  exceptions.  There  are 
some  skillful  writers  who  prefer  to  write  peculiar,  attractive, 
striking  letters  that  they  know  will  not  appeal  to  the  majority, 
but  that  they  feel  sure  will  appeal  to  a  small  percentage  of  the 
people  so  effectively  that  a  sale  will  result.  To  this  class 
belong  Elbert  Hubbard  and  other  eccentric  letter  ^writers. 

Hubbard  recently  wrote  a  letter  that  began  as  follows: 
''Dear  Sir :  Don't  be  a  lobster."  Now  perhaps  nine  people  out 
of  every  ten  would  throw  that  letter  away  immediately,  re- 
fusing to  read  such  nonsense,  but  Hubbard  calculated  that  the 
tenth  person  would  like  it  so  well  that  he  would  buy  at  once. 

Hence  we  lay  down  the  following  rule  for  writing  general 
form  letters :  Write  a  letter  suited  to  the  majority  of  the  pos- 
sible buyers  on  your  list  unless  you  prefer  to  write  something 
that  will  appeal  to  the  minority  with  such  force  that  you  will 
secure  a  larger  number  of  them  as  actual  customers  than  you 
might  with  a  letter  of  the  other  kind. 

In  writing  a  personal  or  special  letter,  the  problem  is  quite 
different.  It  is  somewhat  similar  in  almost  every  respect  to 
the  individual  sale  made  in  person,  and  must  in  all  respects  be 
made  to  conform  to  the  demands  of  the  particular  case. 

Please  bear  these  distinctions  in  mind  throughout  the 
remainder  of  the  course: 

The  three  factors  of  the  sale  are  exactly  what  they  were 
before : 

1.  The  Customer. 

2.  Salesman. 

3.  Thing  sold. 

The  difference,  however,  is  as  follows: 

1.  The  customer  must  be  approached  through  the  mail, 
not  in  person. 

2.  The  salesman  is  not  present  in  person,  but  uses  the 
business  letter  and  his  skill  in  writing  it  as  a  substitute  for  his 
personal  presence  and  influence. 

3.  The  article  is  the  same,  but  instead  of  being  exhibited 


128  'Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

by  the  salesman  it  must  be  packed  or  presented  in  such  a  way 
that  it  will  exhibit  itself.  Sometimes  it  must  be  exhibited  by 
catalogue  or  description  only. 

The  classes  of  customers  will  be  the  same,  but  the  facts  that 
the  salesman  should  know  about  his  customer's  personality  will 
differ  in  that  the  question  will  not  be  "How  can  the  salesman 
approach  the  customer  in  person  ?"  but  ''How  can  the  letter  be 
sure  of  an  audience?"  The  student  should  give  some  thought 
to  this  distinction,  and  also  to  what  a  salesman  should  know 
about  his  customer's  business  and  how  to  find  it  out. 

The  thing  sold  is  the  same  as  before,  but  there  must  be 
a  difference  in  the  method  of  describing  it.  The  voice  and 
manner  of  the  salesman  are  not  considered  at  all;  in  fact,  it 
does  not  make  any  difference  whether  he  has  any  voice  or 
any  manner.  But  the  importance  of  the  use  of  correct  lan- 
guage is  much  greater  than  when  the  sale  is  made  in  person. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

You  have  a  Smith  Premier  Typewriter  for  sale,  and  you 
see  the  following  Want  Ad  in  the  Daily  Journal : 

"Wanted — Good  second-hand  typewriter,  any  make.  Will 
pay  $35.00.    Henry  Jackson,  Pekin,  111." 

Write  to  Mr.  Jackson  telling  him  about  your  machine  and 
asking  him  whether  he  can  call  at  your  office  in  Peoria  to  see 
it  or  wishes  you  to  send  or  bring  it  to  him  at  Pekin,  which  is 
twelve  miles  distant. 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  129 

LESSON  38 

Process  of  the  Sale  by  Letter 

Every  selling  talk  conducted  by  correspondence  is  in  one  of 
two  forms: 

1.  The  letter. 

2.  Printed  matter  either  enclosed  or  under  separate  cover. 
The  letter  may  be  general  or  personal.     It  will  as  a  rule 

make  specific  mention  of  the  most  important  matters  to  which 
it  is  desired  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  person  receiving  the 
letter.  If  important  or  necessary  information  is  not  in  the  letter 
itself,  the  letter  should  refer  to  enclosures  in  which  this  in- 
formation can  be  found.  Frequently  the  specific  information 
which  the  person  receiving  the  letter  will  be  most  anxious 
to  have,  is  contained  in  the  enclosed  or  accompanying  printed 
matter.  When  this  is  the  case,  the  printed  matter  will  receive 
more  consideration  if  reference  is  made  to  it  in  the  letter. 

The  enclosures  may  be  ariy  one  of  the  following  things: 
(1)  Circulars;  (2)  catalogs  (also  frequently  sent  under  sep- 
arate cover)  ;  (3)  samples;  (4)  letters  of  recommendation,  or 
testimonial,  or  other  special  enclosures. 

Generally  speaking,  such  enclosures  will  come  under  the 
head  of  advertising,  and  should  be  considered  under  that  study. 
Special  attention  will  not  be  given  to  them  here. 

If  enclosures  are  made  with  a  special  letter  the  writer  must 
be  careful  not  to  repeat  in  one  what  he  has  said  in  the  other 
unless  he  does  so  for  the  purpose  of  emphasis. 

In  salesmanship  by  correspondence  a  serious  difficulty 
arises  with  regard  to  what  we  have  studied  under  the  heading 
''Process  of  the  Sale."  When  selling  in  person,  the  salesman 
can  hold  to  the  proper  order  of  presentation  that  is  expressed 
in  the  words  audience,  attention,  interest,  desire,  and  action. 
In  writing  a  letter  he  is  frequently  called  upon  to  reverse  this 
order,  at  least  so  far  as  the  last  two  processes  are  concerned. 


130  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

Frequently,  if  not  usually,  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  urge 
action  in  his  letter,  and  leave  the  desire  to  be  aroused  by  his 
enclosures.  This  is  sometimes  necessary  in  personal  salesman- 
ship, but  not  as  frequently  as  in  correspondence.  This  does  not 
specially  injure  the  salesman's  chances  of  making  a  sale,  but  it 
forces  him  to  make  a  radical  difference  in  his  manner  of  urging 
the  sale.  Certainly  no  man  ever  has  as  good  a  chance  to  sell 
goods  by  letter  as  he  has  to  sell  in  person.  That  is  an  undis- 
puted fact,  and  yet  over  against  this  is  the  similarly  undis- 
puted fact  that  a  man  can  write  to  so  many  more  persons  than 
he  can  call  upon  that  he  may  be  able  to  do  a  far  larger  business 
by  correspondence  than  he  could  in  person.  Of  course  this 
depends  entirely  upon  the  nature  of  the  goods ;  some  goods 
can  hardly  be  sold  by  mail,  while  others  can  be  sold  nearly  as 
well  by  mail  as  through  the  personal  solicitation. 

Student*s  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Select  any  article  from  the  list  in  Lesson  9.  Write  a 
general  letter  to  be  sent  to  10,000  people  or  firms,  offering 
to  send  your  article  for  examination,  on  approval,  and 
agreeing  to  pay  express  one  way,  if  the  article  is  not  satis- 
factory. State  that  you  are  enclosing  a  folder  describing  the 
article.  The  letter  should  be  not  longer  than  one  hundred 
words. 


LESSON  39 
The  Personality  of  a  Letter 

The  personality  of  a  letter  is  similar  in  almost  all  respects  to 
the  personality  of  the  speaker,  and  of  course  reflects  that  of  the 
writer. 

Instead  of  the  appearance  of  the  salesman  we  have  the 
appearance  of  the  envelope  and  letter.  In  the  place  of  the  vigor 
of  the  speaker  we  have  the  vigor  of  the  writer.  Instead  of  the 
courtesy  of  the  salesman  and  the  pleasantness  of  his  manner 


Salesmanship  by   Correspondence  131 

we  have  the  courtesy  of  the  letter  and  the  pleasantness  of  its 
language.  To  take  the  place  of  the  words  of  the  salesman  we 
have  the  language  of  the  letter. 

The  correct  use  of  language  becomes  imperative  in  the 
letter,  whereas  errors  of  grammar  in  personal  conversation 
can  and  will  be  overlooked  if  they  are  not  too  gross.  Sharp 
retort  and  an  inclination  to  dispute,  while  they  are  bad  habits 
in  a  salesman,  can  frequently  be  overlooked  in  his  selling  talk, 
as  he  can  cover  them  up  by  more  agreeable  remarks  and  talk 
the  customer  into  a  good  humor,  though  it  is  a  bad  situation 
in  which  this  is  necessary.  But  unpleasant  remarks  look  worse 
in  type  than  they  sound  in  conversation,  and  many  a  iiian  has 
got  himself  into  lasting  trouble  by  imagining  that  he  can  write 
to  a  customer  the  same  things  he  can  say  to  him.  This  makes 
it  very  necessary  for  the  correspondent  to  study  carefully  the 
points  contained  in  lessons  41  to  50  in  order  to  avoid  making 
this  sort  of  error. 

A  careful  study  of  the  letter  from  the  salesman's  point  of 
view  involves  the  consideration  of  two  things: 

1.  Process  of  the  sale. 

2.  The  effect  of  the  five  senses. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  process  in  the  preceding  lesson. 
Let  us  now  consider  it  in  greater  detail. 

Securing  an  Audience  for  the  Letter 

The  first  thing  is  to  secure  an  audience.  Naturally  the 
first  and  perhaps .  the  most  important  consideration  in  this 
connection  is  the  appearance  of  the  letter  and  envelope,  espe- 
cially that  of  the  envelope. 

People  are  in  the  habit  of  using  different  shapes,  qualities, 
and  colors  of  envelopes,  with  letter  heads  to  match.  The 
envelope  of  the  society  lady  is  different  in  all  these  respects 
from  that  used  by  a  business  man.  This  is  not  through  acci- 
dent, but  from  design.    A  quality  of  paper  that  would  be  con- 


132  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

sidered  necessary  in  social  correspondence  would  be  likely  to 
cause  laughter  if  used  by  business  men,  because  of  the  undue 
extravagance  it  would  indicate. 

Let  us  divide  envelopes  into  the  following  classes : 

L     For  social  correspondence. 

2.  For  invitations  to  weddings,  commencement  exercises, 
and  other  special  occasions. 

3.  For  special  personal  correspondence  in  business. 

4.  For  ordinary  business  correspondence. 

5.  Coarse  envelopes  for  circulars,  magazines  and  cata- 
logues. 

Envelopes  of  the  first  two  classes  rarely  have  any  printing 
on  them  to  show  who  sent  the  letter,  though  in  the  first  class 
the  address  of  the  sender  is  frequently  written  on  the  envelope, 
and  often  embossed  monograms  are  used  to  give  tone  to  the 
envelope.  The  purpose  of  this  is,  of  course,  to  avoid  advertis- 
ing the  name  of  the  sender,  or  give  information  to  the  curious ; 
a  precaution  that  is  frequently  very  necessary  in  personal  cor- 
respondence. On  the  last  three  classes  of  envelopes  a  return 
card  is  usually  printed,  usually  very  modestly  in  class  three, 
and  very  boldly  in  classes  four  and  five.  There  are  some 
business  men  who  print  the  return  card  on  the  back  of  the 
envelope  of  class  three,  and  many  who  do  not  print  it  at  all. 
The  same  applies  to  class  four,  but  not  as  often  to  class  five. 
The  sender  sometimes  does  not  care  to  have  the  reader  know 
before  he  opens  the  letter  who  it  is  from.  This  is  an  admission 
on  his  part  that  should  the  reader  know  this  he  would  be  likely 
not  to  give  it  attention.  But  it  sometimes  .is  necessary,  never- 
theless. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  penmanship  or  typewriting 
on  the  outside  of  a  letter  should  be  good,  so  that  the  letter  will 
create  the  very  best  possible  impression  before  the  envelope  is 
opened.  The  words  "good  penmanship  and  typewriting"  do  not 
refer  to  fancy  work  in  either,  as  this  is  abominable  and  should 
be  avoided.    The  sole  impression  that  business  men  desire  to 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  133 

create  is  the  impression  of  good  business  ability.  Flourishing 
penmanship  never  accomplished  this.  The  use  of  rubber 
stamps  for  addressing  is  usually  to  be  avoided,  and  notwith- 
standing the  great  popularity  of  addressing  machines  that  set 
up  the  name  of  the  person  in  typewriter  type,  addresses  printed 
by  these  devices  usually  look  shoddy  and  should  never  be  used 
except  in  sending  out  bills,  statements,  announcements  of 
societies,  and  other  matter  not  in  the  nature  of  personal  corre- 
spondence. 

Whether  to  use  one  cent  or  two  cent  postage  is  another 
very  important  question  about  which  leading  houses  disagree. 
It  must  be  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  goods  to  be  sold, 
and  the  value  of  the  first  impression  sought.  A  symposium 
conducted  by  the  Business  Monthly  Magazine  in  1908,  showed 
a  nearly  even  division  of  opinion  among  successful  national 
advertisers  on  this  point. 

Of  course  the  sealing  of  the  letters  is  a  matter  that  is 
decided  upon  when  you  make  your  choice  between  the  one  cent 
and  two  cent  stamps,  as  all  sealed  letters  must  be  sent  under  two 
cent  postage.  There  are  some  firms  that  use  an  open-end 
envelope  which  comes  as  near  looking  like  a  sealed  envelope 
as  the  law  will  allow  and  yet  carry  it  under  one  cent  postage. 
The  open-end  envelope  is  probably  safer  so  far  as  the  pre- 
vention of  loss  of  enclosures  is  concerned,  than  the  unsealed 
ordinary  envelope. 

One  consideration  that  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  in  the 
discussion  of  the  one  cent  or  two  cent  stamp  question  is  that  the 
Government  will  return  to  the  sender  all  letters  that  are  mailed 
under  two  cent  postage.  When  an  advertiser  is  circularizing 
many  people  concerning  whose  addresses  he  is  not  sure,  he  will 
do  wisely  to  consider  carefully  the  use  of  the  two  cent  stamp 
in  at  least  the  first  letter  to  each  of  the  persons.  He  can  take 
off  his  list  the  names  of  persons  letters  to  whom  have  been 
returned,  and  this  will  probably  be  economical  in  the  long  run. 

In  the  matter  of  getting  an  audience,  however,  you  must 


134  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

remember  that  the  envelope  is  only  the  first  step.  It  has 
merely  gotten  the  salesman  inside  the  door,  so  to  speak.  The 
letterhead  is  the  thing  that  really  determines  whether  the  letter 
will  have  an  audience  with  the  customer,  unless  of  course  that 
part  was  unfavorably  decided  when  the  customer  saw  the 
envelope. 

Mimeographed  letters  or  poorly  typewritten  letters  that 
show  on  their  face  that  they  are  merely  form  letters,  are  not 
very  certain  of  an  audience  anywhere.  The  person  who  issues 
a  form  letter  should  give  it  enough  thought  and  care  to  see 
that  the  work  is  excellently  done,  and  that  the  name  is  filled 
in  in  such  a  way  that  it  appears  to  be  a  regular  personal  com- 
munication.   This  must  be  done  for  the  two  reasons: 

1.  There  are  many  people  who  will  not  read  letters  unless 
they  think  they  are  personal. 

2.  There  are  many  more  people  who  are  perfectly  willing 
to  read  what  they  recognize  as  a  form  letter  if  it  seems  to  be 
a  good  one,  well  gotten  up,  who  will  not  give  a  second  glance 
to  one  that  is  obviously  cheap.  The  use  of  a  rubber  stamp 
for  the  signature  of  the  writer  is  always  permissible  in  form 
letters,  but  should  be  accompanied  by  the  written  signature  or 
initials  of  someone..  The  effect  of  a  written  signature  can  be 
secured  by  having  the  signature  printed  in  black  ink  from  a 
facsimile  etching  of  one's  signature,  but  it  is  not  good  policy 
to  let  a  letter  go  out  without  having  the  signature  give  the 
impression  that  someone  has  given  it  personal  attention  in 
signing,  unless  this  letter  is  an  announcement  that  is  certain 
to  be  favorably  received. 

The  style  of  printing,  engraving,  lithographing,  or  emboss- 
ing that  is  used  on  a  letterhead  and  envelope  should  be  in 
keeping  with  the  general  nature  of  the  communication  and 
with  the  taste  of  the  writer.  Poor  business  men  do  not  realize 
how  much  difference  a  few  dollars  spent  in  a  design  of  an 
attractive  sort  will  make  in  the  general  effectiveness  of  their 
letters. 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  135 

The  folding  of  the  letterhead  is  another  very  important 
matter.  It  should  be  done  very  carefully  so  that  the  letter 
will  look  neat  and  attractive  when  opened. 

The  main  essentials  regarding  the  envelope  and  the  letter- 
head have  now  been  mentioned  except  the  matter  of  size.  In 
business  correspondence  there  are  two  sizes  of  envelopes  that 
are  almost  universally  used,  the  No.  6^  envelope  which  is  6^ 
inches  wide  and  the  No.  10  envelope  which  is  9^  inches  wide. 
As  a  rule,  personal  letters  are  sent  in  No.  6^  envelopes,  but 
some  people,  especially  lawyers  and  others  who  deal  with  docu- 
ments, habitually  use  the  larger  envelopes  even  for  their  per- 
sonal correspondence.  If  the  larger  envelope  is  of  good  paper 
and  expensively  printed  or  embossed,  it  may  create  a  better 
impression  than  the  smaller  envelope,  but  of  course  expense 
is  a  matter  to  be  considered  in  this  connection.  The  No.  10 
envelope  also  permits  one  to  fold  a  letter  with  only  two  folds 
instead  of  three. 

For  business  letter  heads,  one  size  (8^^x11  inches)  is  al- 
most invariably  used.  Like  everything  else,  these  things  are 
regulated  by  custom.  There  is  no  reason  envelopes  and  letter- 
heads should  be  any  certain  size  except  that  business  men  get 
to  using  uniform  sizes  of  paper  and  envelopes  for  the  sake  of 
convenience. 

Getting  Attention  in  a  Letter 

The  next  point  in  the  process  of  the  sale  is  attention.  Some- 
times the  attention  can  be  secured  by  the  method  of  saluta- 
tion. Especially  is  this  true  in  a  personal  letter  or  a  letter  to 
a  person  who  is  a  member  of  a  society  of  which  the  person 
who  sends  the  letter  is  also  a  member.  But  more  frequently 
the  riveting  of  attention  depends  on  the  first  sentence  or  para- 
graph, which  must  be  striking  or  at  least  convincing  and  in- 
teresting. Sometimes  the  attention  is  secured  by  a  "display 
line"  in  the  body  of  a  letter  giving  the  most  important  point  of 
the  communication.     Sometimes  the  attention  is  attracted  by 


136  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

an  enclosure  rather  than  by  the  letter,  as  when  a  sample  of  a 
beautiful  picture  or  a  conspicuous  advertisement  is  enclosed 
with  the  letter. 

The  question  how  to  obtain  attention  is  answered  largely 
by  a  study  of  the  correspondence  of  persons  to  whom  you  will 
write.  If  you  are  writing  to  leading  business  men — men 
whose  minutes  are  worth  dollars,  you  are  not  going  to  get 
their  attention  very  successfully  by  any  sort  of  form  letter,  un- 
less it  be  one  of  those  exceptional  letters,  so  clever  that  any- 
body would  read  it  for  the  sake  of  the  literature  in  it.  Do  not 
think  from  this  statement  that  if  you  are  dealing  with  a  less 
successful  class  of  people  it  is  either  becoming  or  wise  for  you 
to  be  at  all  slack  in  your  efifort  to  do  the  very  best  you  can  in 
your  letter. 

1.  One  of  the  best  impressions  to  create  at  the  beginning 
of  a  letter  is  that  you  are  anxious  to  get  the  customer's  business 
and  that  he  may  count  on  you  to  give  the  very  closest  atten- 
tion to  his  requirements  throughout  all  his  transactions  with 
you.  If  you  can  convey  this  impression,  you  may  secure  an 
audience  when  you  would  otherwise  fail,  and  one  of  the  best 
ways  to  convey  such  an  impression  is  to  make  a  plain  state- 
ment of  this  fact  in  your  letter. 

Arousing  Interest  and  Desire  by  Correspondence 

Securing  the  interest  and  the  desire  of  the  reader  in  a  letter 
are  steps  so  similar  to  those  of  securing  interest  and  desire  in 
speech,  that  it  is  hardly  necessary  for  them  to  be  discussed 
here  further  than  they  were  discussed  in  the  previous  lesson. 

How  to  Get  Action  Through  a  Letter 

To  obtain  action  is  a  matter  of  greater  difficulty  by  means 
of  correspondence  than  when  a  personal  solicitation  is  made. 
The  following  ways  are  advisable  under  various  circumstances. 

I.  Make  the  offer  to  sell  at  a  certain  price,  and  leave  it  to 
the  buyer's  judgment  without  further  urging. 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  137 

11.     Use  some  such  special  argument,  as ; 

a.  Immediate  action  necessary. 

1.  Time  limit  to  the  offer. 

2.  Delay  may  cause  the  reader  neglect  or  forget. 

3.  Supply  in  stock  is  limited. 

4.  Every  day's  delay  means  so  much  profit  lost. 

5.  Prices  may  rise  in  future. 

b.  The  article  will  contribute  to  comfort  or  profit. 

c.  The  buyer's  influence  in  the  community  is  desired, 

and  therefore,  a  low  price  is  offered. 
III.  Make  a  special  promise,  such  as 

a.  Special  attention  to  his  order. 

b.  Special  discount. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Each  student  will  call  upon  some  prominent  firm  in  the 
city  and  secure  a  sample  of  its  letter-head  and  envelope. 
The  letter-head  designs,  quality  of  paper  and  printing,  sizes 
and  shapes  of  letter-heads  and  envelopes  and  other  features, 
can  be  discussed  and  compared  in  class,  and  the  favorites 
chosen  by  vote. 


LESSON  40 

The  Five  Senses,  in  Correspondence 

The  five  senses  are  sight,  hearing,  smell,  touch,  and  taste. 
Upon  examination  of  this  list,  the  student  will  at  once  see  that 
sight  is  the  important  one  in  correspondence,  and  touch  second. 
Sometimes  sounds,  odors,  and  tastes  can  be  conveyed  through 
the  mail  in  the  form  of  samples,  but  the  few  instances  that 
could  be  named  here  would  not  be  of  much  importance  except 
to  impress  upon  the  student  the  fact  that  when  one  of  these  un- 
common impressions  can  be  conveyed,  a  most  striking  effect 


138  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

will  be  produced.  If  one  is  selling  a  sachet  powder,  for  in- 
stance, there  can  be  no  more  delightful  way  to  advertise  than 
by  the  use  of  it  in  the  letter.  Samples  of  breakfast  foods  dis- 
tributed along  the  street,  accompanied  by  a  letter  or  advertise- 
ment, accomplish  the  same  purpose. 

The  question  of  touch  is  one  that  is  more  or  less  import- 
ant in  several  respects.  In  the  first  place,  the  feeling  of  the 
letter  paper  in  the  hands  of  the  reader  is  an  element  that  counts 
because  that  is  one  means  the  reader  has  of  judging  its  quali- 
ity,  and  he  is  apt  to  judge  the  quality  of  the  sender  by  the 
quality  of  the  letter.  An  embossed  or  engraved  letterhead 
creates  the  same  impression.  A  dirty,  smudgy  typewritten 
letter,  especially  a  carbon  copy  with  its  sticky  feeling,  creates 
a  very  poor  impression.  For  this  reason  touch  is  possibly 
more  important  than  the  other  senses,  except  sight,  which  is 
almost  all-important.  To  review  the  different  ways  in  which 
the  sense  of  sight  becomes  important  in  a  letter  would  be  to 
review  all  we  have  been  saying  in  the  last  three  or  four  lessons, 
hence  there  is  no  need  of  discussing  it  at  this  time.  But  it  is 
advisable  to  again  suggest  this,  since  so  many  of  the  five  senses 
drop  out  of  consideration  in  salesmanship  by  correspondence 
and  the  attention  is  focused  mainly  on  the  matter  of  sight. 
It  is  of  extreme  importance  that  this  matter  be  looked  into  with 
the  greatest  of  care. 

The  question  naturally  arises,  "Why  does  sight  have  such 
a  great  influence?" 

The  answer  is  many-branched.  In  the  first  place,  the  con- 
ception of  your  article  must  be  conveyed  to  the  mind  of  the 
buyer  through  his  ability  to  see  what  is  in  your  letter,  unless 
a  sample  is  sent  to  him,  and  your  proposition  is  conveyed  to 
him  by  the  same  means.  Therefore,  the  language  used  must 
be  good,  the  appearance  to  the  eye  must  be  delightful,  and  the 
punctuation  and  spelling  must  be  correct,  if  the  best  impres- 
sion is  to  be  conveyed. 

The  letter  must  be  so  arranged  that  it  will  require  the  least 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  139 

strain  on  the  buyer's  eyes.  The  letter  will  not  stand  much 
chance  if  half  of  the  words  are  blurred. 

Among  the  many  reasons  for  the  growth  of  the  typewriter 
trade  is  the  fact  that  business  men  do  not  want  the  trouble  of 
reading  letters  in  poor  hand-writing,  and  the  machine  brings 
all  letters  to  the  same  level  so  far  as  legibility  is  concerned,  ex- 
cept as  to  the  signature. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  sense  of  sight  is  almost  the  only 
sense  of  the  customer  that  can  naturally  assist  you  in  selling  by 
letter.     Why  not  use  it  then,  for  all  it  is  worth  ? 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Write  a  letter  offering  to  sell  letterheads  like  the  one  on 
which  you  write,  for  $2.75  a  thousand,  with  envelopes  to  match 
at  $2.40  a  thousand.  Make  your  letter  attractive  and  call 
attention  to  the  excellent  quality  of  the  paper  you  use. 


LESSON  41 
The  Length  of  a  Letter 

We  may  say  of  the  length  of  a  letter  all  that  was  said  of 
the  length  of  a  personal  selling  talk,  and  more. 

In  the  case  of  the  personal  talk,  the  salesman  is  present 
and  is  able  to  tell  whether  his  customer  is  tired  or  not.  In  the 
construction  of  the  letter,  he  has  no  such  guide,  and  no  guide 
that  is  even  similar,  unless  he  has  had  some  previous  acquaint- 
ance or  correspondence  with  the  buyer.  He  must  therefore 
judge  from  past  experience. 

Let  us  imagine  a  case  of  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the 
buyer  by  letter,  in  person,  and  by  reputation.  Let  us  gee  what 
facts  he  can  know  about  how  long  to  make  a  personal  letter. 

1.  This  will  always  depend  upon  how  much  must  be  said 
to  cover  the  ground ;  for  instance,  if  the  customer  has  asked  a 


140  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

question  that  can  be  answered  by  ''yes"  or  "no,"  a  few  words 
will  cover  the  case.  If,  on  the  contrary,  he  has  asked  for  a 
through  description  of  something,  he  must  have  what  he  asks 
for.  We  have,  then,  our  first  rule,  that  the  letter  must  be  long 
enough  in  any  case  to  cover  the  point  that  the  writer  is  obliged 
to  make. 

There  is  often  a  choice,  however,  whether  or  not  a  certain 
point  is  absolutely  indispensable  to  a  letter.  The  use  of  space 
in  making  the  point  in  question  depends  upon : 

1.  The  value  of  the  buyer's  time.  One  ought  not  to  take 
up  the  time  of  a  busy  and  important  man  with  the  discussion 
of  many  small  details  that  he  knows  the  person  to  whom  the 
letter  is  written  would  not  personally  consider. 

2.  The  anxiety  or  interest  shown  by  the  buyer  in  favor 
of  a  thorough  description. 

3.  The  value  of  the  writer's  time.  Even  though  the  buyer 
has  time  to  read  all  you  write,  you  must  consider  whether  you 
have  time  to  write  long  descriptions  if  short  ones  will  accom- 
plish the  purpose. 

4.  The  value  of  the  commodity.  Naturally,  a  man  would 
be  willing  to  take  up  more  time  with  the  discussion  of  all  the 
items  connected  with  the  description  of  a  $1,000.00  piano  than 
he  would  be  if  you  were  to  try  to  sell  him  a  five  cent  bottle  of 
ink.  In  either  case,  it  is  to  be  assumed  that  he  would  be  in- 
terested in  a  description  of  the  article,  but  in  the  case  of  the 
ink,  he  would  be  satisfied  with  a  short  description,  whereas  in 
the  case  of  the  $1,000  piano  a  much  longer  description  Vould 
be  necessary. 

As  noted  above,  the  correspondent  frequently  does  not  have 
any  data  of  this  kind  concerning  the  buyer.  Of  course,  if  he 
has  one  letter  from  him,  that  letter  will  probably  indicate  what 
sort  of  person  he  is,  and  the  correspondent  may  construct  his 
letter  accordingly  as  to  length  as  well  as  other  matters.  He 
may  also  know  him  by  reputation  and  be  guided  by  this.  But 
if  he  knows  nothing  about  him,  he  must  apply  the  same  rules 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  141 

to  his  letter,  as  to  length,  that  he  would  apply  to  a  general  let- 
ter. We  will,  therefore,  consider  the  rules  of  length  that 
should  be  applied  to  a  general  letter. 

A  general  letter  must  have  a  length  suited  to  the  importance 
of  the  article  to  the  average  buyer.  It  would  have  to  be  an 
unusual  letter  that  would  persuade  a  man  to  continue  reading 
it  for  two  pages  if  the  thing  for  sale  were  a  single  pen,  a  pen- 
cil, ruler,  or  any  other  small  article.  It  can  be  put  down  as  a 
general  rule  that  men  will  not  waste  much  more  time  over  the 
consideration  of  any  project  than  they  believe  it  worth  to  them. 

Of  course,  there  are  exceptions.  There  are  some  people 
so  constituted  that  it  takes  them  an  hour  to  make  a  purchase, 
even  though  the  amount  involved  be  not  over  a  dime,  but  they 
must  be  excepted  from  the  calculation.  They  do  not  represent 
the  general  class  qf  people  who  buy  things.  If  the  customer's 
time  is  worth  $10.00  a  day,  or  $1.00  an  hour,  he  can  not  be 
expected  to  waste  an  hour's  time  deciding  the  matter  of  a  fif- 
teen cent  purchase. 

The  length  of  your  letter  must  also  be  modified  by  the  con- 
sideration of  how  much  time  is  necessary  to  make  your  point. 
No  matter  how  much  the  amount  involved,  no  good  business 
man  would  care  to  take  a  month  of  worry  and  indecision  to 
decide  a  question  that  could  have  been  made  as  clear  as  day- 
light in  five  minutes. 

There  is  another  consideration  in  favor  of  brevity.  If  a 
brief  letter  is  simple  and  pointed  enough -to  sell  goods  to  the 
average  buyer,  it  will  undoubtedly  call  forth  a  request  for  fur- 
ther information  from  those  buyers  who  find  themselves  unable 
to  make  up  theip  minds  quickly. 

Remember  that  the  object  in  writing  the  letter  on  one  page 
or  half  a  page  instead  of  two  pages,  is  not  to  save  paper  or  the 
trouble  of  writing,  but  rather  to  insure  for  your  product  a  care- 
ful investigation. 

On  the  other  hand,  do  not  forget  that  your  letter  must  be 
sufficiently  long  to  cover  the  ground. 


142  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

What  do  you  think  of  tliis  letter,  sent  without  any  enclos- 
ures ? 

John  Jones, 

Chicago,  111. 
Dear  Sir :  *  . 

Will  you  send  us  $17.50  for  a  desk? 

Yours  truly. 

Blank  Furniture  Co. 

What  kind  of  a  desk,  what  style  or  build,  what  kind  of 
wood,  what  finish  of  wood,  what  size,  how  many  drawers, 
what  color  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  what  an  absurd  mistake  it  would  be 
for  the  Blank  Furniture  Company  to  write  a  twelve-page  let- 
ter on  the  same  subject. 

As  a  rule  then,  let  us  say  this  about  the  general  letter.  It 
must  be  of  a  length  suited  to  the  importance  of  the  article  and 
the  value  of  the  time  to  be  consumed  both  in  writing  and  read- 
ing it.  This  can  be  modified  in  favor  of  brevity,  if  the  writer 
will  invite  interested  persons  to  write  him  for  further  infor- 
mation. The  length  of  letters  is  an  interesting  question  when 
one  is  writing  a  series  of  follow-up  letters,  which  will  be  dis- 
cussed in  a  later  chapter.  In  this  case,  the  study  of  the  length 
of  the  letter  is  even  more  interesting  than  in  the  case  of  a  single 
letter.  There  are  some  firms  that  approve  of  a  given  length 
of  letter  which  they  use  in  almost  monotonous  regularity. 
Other  firms  vary  the  length  of  different  letters  to  suit  the 
particular  purpose  of  each.  To  illustrate,  let  us  describe  a 
series  of  follow-up  letters  once  issued  by  one  of  the  best  adver- 
tiser in  the  country.  His  first  letter  was  about  a  page  and  a 
third  long,  double  spaced.  This  was  a  good  length  because 
the  proposition  was  big  enough  to  warrant  this  length,  and  yet 
the  writer  did  not  presume  upon  the  importance  of  his  product 
by  consuming  too  much  paper.  It  might  have  been  better  had 
the  letter  been  entirely  on  one  page,  single  spaced,  with  double 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  143 

space  between  paragraphs.  The  second  letter  was  a  trifle 
longer,,  occupying  practically  all  of  two  pages.  It  stated  that 
he  had  not  yet  heard  from  the  customer  and  believed  that  he 
had  not  sufficiently  impressed  him  with  the  value  of  the  pro- 
duct, which  he  again  described. 

The  third  letter  was  very  short,  not  over  one  third  of  a 
page.  The  writer  stated  that  he  had  not  heard  from  the 
buyer.  He  seemed  to  be  alarmed  over  it  and  wished  to  be 
assured  whether  the  buyer  was  still  alive  by  a  yes  or  no  answer. 
This  letter  was  written  in  such  a  perfect  way,  that  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  it  was  a  form  letter,  the  buyer  would  probably 
have  a  feeling  of  guilt  on  account  of  the  fact  that  he  had  not 
replied,  and  somehow  or  other,  there  would  come  stealing 
over  him  that  indefinable  sense  of  the  personality  of  the  writer 
that  would  make  him  imagine'  that  the  president  of  this  insti- 
tution himself  had  his  eye  upon  him  and  proposed  to  find  out 
exactly  whether  or  not  he  had  been  fooling  with  him  in  this 
matter,  concerning  which  he  had  already  written  two  inter- 
esting letters. 

The  fourth  letter  was  amazing.  It  was  four  pages  long. 
It  assumed  that  the  buyer  had  received  all  three  letters  and 
had  ignored  them.  The  writer  knew  this  to  be  true  because 
the  letters  had  been  sent  by  two  cent  postage,  and  had  they  not 
been  received  would  have  been  returned  to  the  sender.  In  this 
fourth  letter,  the  writer  acknowledged  that  he  had  written 
three  times  and  had  failed  to  secure  an  answer.  Instead  of 
making  the  buyer  feel,  however,  that  he  was  guilty  of  dis- 
courtesy in  his  failure  to  reply,  as  he  had  done  in  the  previous 
letter,  he  began  in  such  a  way  that  the  buyer  would  probably 
have  this  feeling,  "This  man  has  failed  to  interest  me  in  three 
letters.  He  believes  that  his  failure  is  his  own  fault  because  he 
has  not  yet  given  me  enough  information.  He  now  proposes 
to  give  me  all  the  information  there  is,  and  I  am  sure  from  the 
serious  tone  of  this  present  letter  that  he  is  going  to  tell  me 
the  rock-bottom  facts  regarding  his  proposition.     Moreover,  I 


144  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

believe  he  may  have  a  special  offer  to  make  at  the  end  of  this 
letter." 

The  special  offer,  hov^ever,  did  not  come  in  this  letter.  It 
came  in  a  letter  all  by  itself  about  tw^o  weeks  later,  the  fifth  and 
last  letter  received.  It  stood  alone,  and  v^as  the  one  argument 
advanced  by  the  w^riter.  It  was  one  page  long.  He  merely 
assumed  that  he  failed  to  interest  the  buyer  previously  on  ac- 
count of  price  alone.    He  therefore  lowered  the  price. 

You  can  see  from  the  foregoing  illustration  that  the  length 
of  a  letter  is  not  to  be  determined  alone  by  the  rules  given  at 
the  beginning  of  this  lesson,  but  that  another  consideration 
comes  before  you.  You  will  see  that  the  customer,  the  sales- 
man and  the  commodity  were  the  same  in  each  of  the  above 
letters.  Therefore,  the  variation  in  the  length  of  letters  was 
due  to  an  entirely  different  circumstance ;  namely,  the  progress 
of  the  sale.  Each  letter  must  be  exactly  suited  in  length  to 
the  amount  that  it  seems  wise  or  necessary  for  the  correspond- 
ent to  say  at  that  particular  time. 

Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Select  any  article  in  the  list  in  lesson  9,  and  write  a  form 
letter  that  you  think  would  sell  it  to  the  average  buyer  of  such 
an  article,  who  you  know  expects  to  buy  some  place. 


LESSON  42 
A  Series  of  Form  Letters 

We  are  now  ready  to  consider  the  process  of  the  sale  as 
applied  to  a  series  of  form  letters. 

We  have  already  considered  it  as  applied  to  the  single 
letter. 

Generally  speaking,  the  process  does  not  follow  such  an  un- 
varying order  as  in  the  spoken  sale. 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  145 

In  a  series  of  letters,  practically  every  letter  has  to  implore 
its  own  audience,  even  though  its  request  for  an  audience 
consists  of  nothing  more  than  a  card  in  the  corner  of  the 
envelope  giving  the  name  of  the  writer.  Sometimes  the  omis- 
sion of  that  card  arouses  curiosity  and  has  the  same  effect. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  first  letter  of  a  series  decides  the 
fate  of  the  others  so  far  as  audience  is  concerned  except  that 
audience  depends  upon  correct  mail  delivery;  and  this,  of 
course,  may  be  disturbed  in  the  case  of  the  fifth  letter  as  well 
as  the  first.  Then,  as  just  suggested,  sometimes  the  first  letter 
decides  the  question  of  audience  unfavorably  and  the  origin  of 
subsequent  letters,  in  order  to  obtain  audience,  would  have  to 
be  concealed. 

The  foregoing  remarks,  however,  do  not  apply  to  the  busi- 
ness of  many  reputable  firms,  because  a  firm  with  a  reputation 
and  a  good  proposition  would  not  find  it  advantageous  to  con- 
ceal or  fail  to  acknowledge  the  authorship  of  any  letter.  We 
need  not  discuss  the  matter  of  audience  further  than  to  say 
that  the  first  letter  often  decides  the  question  for  the  rest. 
Sometimes  it  decides  it  because  of  the  proposition  presented, 
sometimes  because  of  th^  general  standing  of  the  house,  and 
sometimes  because  it  is  so  cleverly  written  that  the  customer 
feels  inclined  to  give  himself  the  literary  treat  of  reading 
similar  ones  whenever  they  come.  This  is  a  very  valuable 
point,  but  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  it  is  not  by  any 
means  essential.  A  good  proposition  will  often  stand  on  its 
own  merits  without  any  particular  cleverness  of  writing.  It 
is  also  true  that  this  cleverness  of  writing  will  bring  the  per- 
centage of  successful  letters  up  tremendously  even  when  the 
proposition  is  the  same. 

The  attention  of  the  reader  must  be  secured  by  each  letter, 
but  the  probability  is  that  the  attention  given  to  the  last  letter 
of  the  series  depends  upon  the  first  letter  much  more  even  than 
was  true  in  the  case  of  audience.  It  is  also  true,  however, 
that  attention  can  be  secured  more  easily  by  the  presentation 


146  Lessons   in    Salesmanship 

of  a  new  idea  than  was  the  case  with  audience.  So  if  your  first 
letter  was  good  enough  to  gain  an  audience  for  your  second 
one,  it  is  quite  Hkely  that  the  attention  paid  to  the  second  one 
will  be  much  greater  than  otherwise. 

Just  as  the  audience  granted  to  letters  depends  largely  upon 
the  amount  of  time  at  the  reader's  disposal,  so  the  attention 
depends  largely  upon  his  state  of  mind.  Like  audience,  atten- 
tion must  be  gained  thoroughly  by  the  first  letter  if  the  best 
results  are  to  be  secured.  It  is  sometimes  sufficient,  however, 
in  the  ordinar)^  form  letters,  that  the  first  one  or  two  letters 
shall  be  devoted  to  getting  audience  and  attention  and  arousing 
interest;  that  is,  the  reader  must  be  made  to  feel, — "This  is 
a  good  thing  for  many  people,  and  it  is  certainly  interesting  to 
note  that  they  can  sell  such-and-such  an  article  for  such-and- 
such  a  price,"  or — **It  is  interesting  to  see  that  such-and-such 
a  thing  can  be  done  with  such-and-such  an  article."  Of  course, 
if  each  letter  can  be  so  arranged  that  the  man  will  want  to  buy 
at  once  without  waiting  for  further  letters  to  be  sent  to  him,  it 
is  to  the  sender's  advantage  to  put  something  in  every  letter 
that  will  arouse  his  desire  and  stimulate  him  to  action,  but 
in  some  cases,  there  is  no  attempt  made  along  this  line  in  the 
first  two  letters  of  a  series  of  five  The  chief  effort  is  to  get 
a  buyer-  to  write  to  the  firm  and  explain  his  personal  situation 
because  it  is  always  held  that  when  one  writes  a  personal  letter 
asking  for  information  his  value  as  a  prospective  customer  is 
multiplied  many  times. 

After  one  or  two  letters  of  this  sort,  however,  it  becomes 
necessary  to  quicken  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  an  intense  desire 
to  possess  the  article  not  because  of  the  general  interest  that  he 
had  for  it  at  first,  but  because  you  have  shown  him  why  there 
should  be  a  special  interest  in  it  and  desire  for  it  in  his  particu- 
lar case.  The  distinction  that  is  here  made  between  interest  and 
desire  is  one  that  has  been  impressed  upon  you  throughout 
the  entire  course.  Interest  is  a  mere  abstract  thing.  It  indi- 
cates a  kind  of  general  or  impersonal  approval  of  the  article. 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  147 

It  has  not  yet  had  linked  to  it  that  distinctive  wish  to  have  and 
possess  that  we  call  desire. 

The  greatest  element  of  salesmanship,  except  the  appeal  to 
financial  gain,  enters  in  at  this  point.  This  is  the  ability  to 
make  a  man  want  a  thing  for  himself.  Anything  that  will  ap- 
peal to  the  sense  of  personal  comfort,  satisfaction,  or  luxury 
will  contribute  tremendously  to  the  awakening  of  desire. 

The  arousing  of  interest  is  a  purely  intellectual  process. 
*To  awaken  the  desire,  one  must  get  behind  the  intellect  and 
beneath  the  well-springs  of  the  mind.  He  must  seek  for  that 
hidden  touch-stone  that  moves  men  in  the  direction  of  action. 
To  do  this,  show  the  following: 

1.  The  article  is  a  necessity. 

Show  a  man  that  he  needs  a  thing,  that  he  must  have  it  for 
the  preservation  of  life  or  health,  and  then  the  only  question 
to  be  solved  is  whether  he  can  possibly  get  the  money  to  pay 
for  it. 

2.  It  is  a  convenience. 

Show  a  man  that  he  can  save  himself  unnecessary  effort 
or  time,  and  then  you  have  only  to  demonstrate  the  fact  that 
the  convenience  is  worth  more  than  the  investment. 

3.  It  will  earn  a  profit. 

Show  a  man  that  what  you  have  to  sell  will  pay  back  the 
investment  in  a  short  time  without  injuring  him  in  any  way, 
and  your  task  is  easy. 

4.  It  is  a  luxury. 

When  you  are  selling  luxuries,  your  task  becomes  a  diffi- 
cult one,  because  some  people  do  not  approve  of  buying  lux- 
uries for  themselves  no  matter  how  greatly  they  may  desire 
them.  When  this  condition  is  met,  it  is  possible  to  arouse  what 
you  think  is  desire  without  arousing  this  kind  of  desire  that 
leads  to  action.  The  sentiment  you  have  aroused  is  more 
nearly  like  interest  than  it  is  like  that  keen,  personal  wish  for 
your  product  that  we  call  desire.  In  other  words,  desire  is  so 
close  to  action  that  it  is  limited  usually  only  by  possibility. 


148  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 

When  one  imagines  that  he  desires  a  thing,  let  us  say  an  article 
that  would  be  valuable  and  that  he  could  afford,  and  yet  he  will 
not  take  it,  we  are  constrained  to  believe  that  he  does  not  desire 
it,  even  though  he  may  himself  think  that  he  does.  The  prob- 
ability is  that  the  sentiment  he  feels  is  merely  interest,  not 
desire.  It  is  in  appealing  to  the  sense  of  luxury  that  this  dis- 
tinction is  perhaps  most  keenly  noticed.  It  is  hard  to  draw 
a  hard  and  fast  line  between  luxuries  and  necessities.  What 
is  a  luxury  to  one  person  is  not  a  luxury  to  another,  as  we 
studied  in  a  previous  lesson  of  our  course. 

What  was  said  in  the  last  paragraph  does  not  mean  that 
there  is  no  difference  between  desire  and  will,  or  that  the  de- 
sire always  involves  the  action  (which  would  be  wrong,  of 
course),  but  it  does  mean  that  the  desire  involves  the  action 
unless  there  is  some  insurmountable  or  logical  reason  that  it 
should  not.  When  one  claims  to  desire  a  thing  against  the 
possession  of  which  there  is  no  obstacle,  either  financial,  phy- 
sical, or  moral,  and  yet  does  not  act,  he  has  deceived  himself. 
He  does  not  desire  it,  for  the  will  is  the  expression  of  desire, 
and,  the  existence  of  obstacles  excepted,  the  action  of  the  will  is 
certainly  the  expression  of  the  desire. 

To  obtain  action  in  a  series  of  letters,  there  is  presented 
practically  the  same  problem  as  outlined  in  Lesson  39  for  the 
single  letter.  It  need  occupy  no  more  of  our  attention  at  this 
time  than  is  covered  by  this  observation : — The  time  for  induc- 
ing action  must  be  definitely  decided  upon ;  it  may  be  in  all  the 
letters  of  the  series,  or  in  one  only,  usually  the  last  one. 

To  illustrate  this,  let  us  study  each  plan  carefully  for  a 
moment. 

Plan  A.  Some  writers  of  circular  letters  regard  each 
letter  as  they  would  a  rifle  shot  aimed  at  a  bull's-eye.  The 
point  is  to  construct  each  letter  so  that  it  is  calculated  to  get 
the  business  regardless  of  any  other  letters.  The  other  letters 
are  then  sent  (in  case  the  first  one  fails)  either  with  different 
arguments  in  them  or  with  the  same  argument  repeated  in 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  149 

a  different  way.  The  cumulative  effect  of  a  series  of  such 
letters  is  great. 

Plan  B.  The  other  plan  is  to  carefully  arrange  four  or 
five  letters  as  one  might  plan  four  or  five  chapters  of  a  con- 
tinued story.  Each  letter  is  designed  to  arouse  the  interest  of 
the  reader  to  a  higher  pitch,  and  it  is  assumed  that  the  last 
letter  will  cause  him  to  buy. 

Both  systems  are  good,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  a  com- 
bination of  them  is  often  better  than  either ;  that  is,  let  each  of 
the  letters  present  to  the  reader  an  opportunity  to  buy,  but  let 
them  be  of  such  nature  that  the  strongest  plea  to  buy,  the  most 
irresistible  argument,  will  come  at  the  end,  after  the  interest 
and  desire  have  been  thoroughly  awakened. 

'   Student's  Exercise  for  this  Lesson 

Select  any  article  in  the  list  in  lesson  9,  and  write  a  form 
letter  to  a  person  whom  you  do  not  know  to  be  interested. 
Word  your  letterhead  as  in  lesson  4,  using  your  own  name 
and  company,  and  make  a  design  for  it  if  you  wish.  Let  the 
letter  be  complete  in  all  respects.  This  letter  is  to  be  a  speci- 
men of  those  just  referred  to  as  Class  A.  You  expect  to  write 
a  number  of  letters  to  this  customer  until  you  get  his  business, 
but  each  letter  must  be  independent  of  the  rest,  containing  a 
statement  of  your  proposition  complete  enough  to  make  a  sale 
without  reference  to  other  letters  you  have  written  or  expect 
to  write  to  your  customer. 


150  Lessons    in    Salesmanship 


LESSON  43.  44,  and  45 

J.  A.  Goltra,  who  owns  a  men's  clothing  and  furnishing 
store  located  at  the  southwest  corner  of  the  Square,  Jackson- 
ville, Illinois,  writes  the  following  letters,  soliciting  business 
and  giving  reasons. 

1.  To  Ralph  Dunlap,  a  college  student  of  means  who  is  a 
stylish  dresser. 

2.  To  Rev.  H.  T.  Marsh,  a  preacher. 

"3.     To  Mrs.  Andrew  Russel,  who  has  four  sons  between 
five  and  fifteen  years  of  age. 

4.  To  A.  C.  Rice,  a  farmer  with  two  sons. 

5.  To  F.  J.  Waddell,  of  the  same  city,  a  leading  business 
man,  in  another  line. 

Directions  to  Student 

Imagine  that  you  are  J.  A.  Goltra,  and  write  the  above  five 
letters.  No  letter  should  have  fewer  than  50  or  more  than  150 
words.  Write  neatly  the  proper  wording  on  the  first  letterhead 
in  the  set,  or  if  you  wish,  sketch  in  a  design.  Let  the  letters  be 
complete  in  all  respects.  Write  letter  No.  1  for  Lesson  43, 
letters  No.  2  and  No.  3  for  Lesson  44,  and  letters  No.  4  and 
No.  5  for  Lesson  45.  Write  each  letter  to  suit  the  station  in 
life  of  the  person  who  is  to  read  it. 


LESSONS  46-50 

This  is  the  test  exercise,  so  far  as  Salesmanship  by  Corre- 
spondence is  concerned.    It  will  require  five  days. 

Select  any  article  with  which  you  are  familiar,  preferably 
one  of  the  articles  in  the  list  in  Lesson  9.  Write  a  series  of  five 
letters  to  a  dealer  who  does  not  handle  your  make.  Let  the 
first  letter  be  written  mainly  to  get  an  audience,  attention  and 


Salesmanship  by  Correspondence  151 

interest,  through  strong,  startling  or  clever  statements.  Let 
the  second  letter  awaken  interest,  chiefly  by  a  thorough 
description  of  the  article.  Let  the  third  arouse  desire,  by 
the  statement  of  price,  names  of  leading  dealers  handling 
goods,  and  strong  evidences  of  value.  Let  the  fourth  urge 
action  for  any  of  the  general  reasons  presented  in  Lesson  43, 
except  reduction  in  price.  Let  the  fifth  urge  action  on  account 
of  a  reduced  price  for  a  given  period.  Modify  this  plan  to  suit 
your  own  ideas  and  judgment. 

Each  letter  must  give,  in  the  letterhead,  the  name  and 
address  of  your  firm,  with  any  trade-mark  or  advertising  words 
you  wish  to  use.  The  first  letter  should  contain  the  letterhead 
design,  if  you  draw  one.  Each  letter  must  be  properly  dated 
and  signed.  The  shortest  letter  must  be  not  fewer  than  50 
words,  and  the  longest  not  more  than  200,  and  each  letter  may 
refer  to  those  that  preceded  it  if  you  wish.  Each  letter  may 
urge  action,  if  you  wish,  but  this  will  only  be  required  in  the 
last  two. 


VB  30895 


C.  A.  GLOVER. 


\^         541894 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


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